China was one of the countries with the lowest consumption of dairy products per capita around the world. As of 2004, average dairy consumption with milk equivalent was only 22 kg, comparing with 93 kg in India and over 150 kg in North America and Europe at the same time (Hemme and Otte, 2010). However, dairy consumption as well as production has been increasing rapidly since then, with annual per-capita dairy consumption reaching 36 kg in 2019 (Wenqian, 2019). Given that China has the largest population of 1.3 billion, this growth is phenomenal. Several reinforcing factors are shown to contribute to this strong growth, including income growth, promotion by the government and dairy industry, urbanization, and development of marketing channels (Fuller et al., 2006). Yet, the long-run trend was once disrupted by the melamine milk scandal in 2008, which had a profound impact on the Chinese dairy sector – not only it led to the restructuring of the entire dairy industry but also it contributed to the ever tightening of food safety regulation in China. The repercussion of this incident can still be felt today as food safety remains one of consumers’ top concerns.