“To ensure that customers are not faced with shelves empty of milk powder, we will only sell a single pack to those we do not know (that is to say the Chinese). To regular customers from the village, we will sell two packs per person.” So reads an internal supermarket memo obtained by NRC Handelsblad.

For several months, Dutch supermarkets have had to contend with shortages of milk formula for babies. Ever since the 2008 melamine contamination scandal, which affected 300,000 infants in the People’s Republic, the Chinese, who have no faith in the quality of dairy goods produced in their country, have been buying massive quantities of milk powder abroad, and notably in the Netherlands.

NRC Handelsblad reports several anti-discrimination offices have been alerted by people who were refused milk powder because they appeared to be Chinese.