Three Chinese babies have died and over 6000 have been poisoned by melamine-adulterated milk. Most have suffered kidney damage, with nearly 160 seriously ill.
A nationwide inspection by China's quality watchdog agency found 22 companies had manufactured products tainted with melamine.
Suppliers are reported to have diluted the raw milk and added the banned chemical, normally used in plastics, to make the milk pass tests for protein content.
Mr Ferrier said it was a "absolutely shocking and tragic incident" which Fonterra was going to try and "make right".
"We ensured that we got all the product off the shelf, you had to make sure that babies weren't buying any more product. We pushed and pushed to get a public recall, happily that's done.
"We can now say there is no situations where there are infants in China consuming Sanlu milkpowder. Because, this is beyond Sanlu; there's many, many other companies that are covered by this one now," he told Radio New Zealand this morning.
Mr Ferrier said the fact the issue was in the public domain was a "huge relief" for Fonterra.
"We genuinely thought that we could make a difference in terms of ensuring the Chinese manufactured product was healthy and safe. And, with 20/20 hindsight of course I wish we could have detected such an atrocious abomination of milk.
"This was a criminal contamination of milk. We'll always ask ourselves if there was a way we could have caught this."
He said there were no dairy companies that test for melamine.
Fonterra was not worried about its future in China at this time, Mr Ferrier said.
Head of China's quality control watchdog agency Li Changjiang said 5000 inspectors would be sent out to monitor companies after government testing showed 20 percent of the companies producing milk powder had dairy products with melamine.
The chemical additive was at the centre of a pet food scandal in the United States in 2007 where an estimated 1500 dogs and cats died after ingesting a pet food ingredient manufactured in China that was laced with melamine.
