The crowds in the courtyard of Sanlu Group headquarters have gradually dispersed in 10 days since the melamine contamination scandal broke, but people are still coming in to return their purchases of milk powder.
The company has set up booths to collect returns from customers. In front of the two cash counters, queues of people, waiting to get their money back, extended about five meters.
Since Sept. 12, Sanlu has recalled all baby formula products found to contain melamine, a chemical that caused kidney stones in infants.
"My brother returned several bags of milk powder two days ago and was compensated for the purchase in full," said Mei Xiao, a Shijiazhuang resident in her twenties. "I came to return bagged milk, but they said they were still examining bagged milk and the result has yet to come out."
A company employee asked Mei to write down her address, contact details and the serial numbers of the bagged milk. "We will inform you how to return them if this batch of goods contain banned substances," he said.
On the other side of the courtyard, workers unloaded boxes of milk powder from trucks, company employees counted them and an accountant led people to the office building to receive their reimbursement.
Gong was sitting in the shade of a tree shadow and waiting. She, with other wholesalers of Sanlu from neighboring Henan Province, came with two trucks loaded with about 1,000 boxes of baby formula.
"I hope Sanlu can repay the wholesale price," said Gong in her thirties, reluctant to give her full name. "Even if they do, I will still suffer losses of about 30 percent due to the transport and storage costs."
Wholesalers are flooding into the headquarters, with consignments of up to 4,000 boxes of powdered milk. "Sanlu owed me about 1 million yuan (US$147,000)," said a wholesaler surnamed Guo, also from Henan. She had recalled the formula from her retailers and returned it to Sanlu.
"I have been here five days and I'm still waiting for Sanlu to give me a solution," she said, sitting on the stairs at the entrance of an office building.
