China’s dairy industry has seen rapid development over the last three decades, but at the same time some problems have emerged. Since the melamine incident in 2008, the country has accelerated its efforts to formulate and revise food safety laws and regulations. It should be especially mentioned that dairy management practices are being gradually improved. This article elucidates the current situation of quality supervision of exported and imported dairy products in China with respect to its supervisory system and legal framework. However, there are still many problems under the current supervision mechanism regarding the supervision of milk sources. The governmental departments and social organizations should play a greater role in this regard, providing relevant suggestions for facilitating the healthy development of the dairy industry. In this article, we also point out that the supervisory work still faces a great challenge in the current complex and volatile situation of food safety. In addition, gradually establishing a multiple supervisory system that is dominated by the government and complemented by the participation of social forces may be an important idea for reform of our food safety system.

A spectrophotometric method for the determination of phosphorus content in formula milk powder forinfants and young children was developed. Under optimized experimental condiitons, the proposed method was highly reproducible and accurate. The following standard curve was established: y = 0.0372x + 0.0039 (R2 = 0.9997). The average recovery of this method was 98.5% with a RSD of 0.39%. Milk powder samples randomly selected from 30 commercial batches showed different levels of phosphorus, depending on age group. Three age groups decreasing order of phosphorus content were: young child’ formula milk powder, older infant’s milk powder and young infant’s milk powder, which were (448 ± 56), (382 ± 59) mg/g and (250 ± 58) mg/g, respectively. Morevoer, samples from different manufactures and the same age group also revealed greatly varying levels of phosphorus.