Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings says the company is "eight to 10 years" behind other dairy players overseas when it comes to sustainability.

Prices of dairy products fell in the second straight GlobalDairyTrade auction overnight.

Fonterra says the potential contamination of 14 milk tankers with mud and gravel is a "very minor incident" and its safety systems worked as intended.

Editorial: Fonterra's botulism false alarm was a chapter of errors that simply should not be able to happen in a food manufacturer of its scale.

Botulism scare avoidable if responsibility passed swiftly to top management: review chairman.

That the scare turned out to be the result of a false positive test does not mitigate the need for Fonterra to up its game, writes Fran O'Sullivan.

French food giant Danone says it will lose more than half a billion dollars in sales in the current financial year as a result of Fonterra's botulism false alarm.

An infant formula exporter has slammed the service a taxpayer-funded business support centre in Shanghai provided to a delegation of New Zealand companies.

Fonterra's botulism scare will be one of the key themes of this year's China Business Summit, which takes place today.

There is understandable concern that the recent food contamination scandals in China could have a corrosive effect on the trading relationship between China and New Zealand.

While New Zealand's exports to China have soared since the free trade agreement between the two countries came into effect, industry leaders say this country still needs to up its game when doing business in the world's second-biggest economy.

Hokitika dairy co-operative Westland Milk Products and Waikato's Tatua outperformed their far larger competitor, Fonterra, for farmer payouts over the 2012/13 year.

Fonterra said it was too early to say what the impact of last month's contamination scare would have on its earnings for the 2013/14 year.

Fonterra said its normalised earnings before interest and tax for 2012/13 came to $1 billion, down 3 per cent on the previous year.

Fonterra has once again raised its farmgate milk price for the 2013-14 season, this time by 50c to a record $8.30 per kg of milk solids.

Fonterra's annual earnings look set to fall short of its prospectus forecasts when the company reports its result for the July 31 financial year tomorrow.

Exporters say many Chinese consumers remain unaware that Fonterra's botulism scare was a false alarm.

Trade Minister Tim Groser says New Zealand is partway through a process of restoring its reputation in the world as a safe food producer after Fonterra's whey product contamination scare and subsequent product recall last month.