Shares in the local food sector declined yesterday on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) amid the latest food safety concerns, with Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品工業) bearing the brunt of the impact.
The food sector sub-index ended down 0.1 percent on the TWSE, but Wei Chuan, the nation’s second-largest food manufacturer, saw its shares tumble 6.25 percent to close at NT$31.5, dragged down mainly by the oil scandal that broke on Wednesday, when Cheng I Food Co Ltd (正義), an affiliate company of Wei Chuan, was alleged to have used tainted oil meant for animal feed in its cooking oil products.
The incident is the third food safety scandal to hit the company’s parent group Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團) and Wei Chuan in a year, calling into questions the group’s credibility and management.
Wei Chuan announced it would conduct a “preventive recall” of three products that use cooking oils manufactured by Cheng I, with estimated losses totaling NT$438,000 (US$14,394).
Formosa Oilseed Processing Co (福懋油脂) shares shrank 6.83 percent to close at NT$21.15, indirectly affected by the oil safety issue.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said it would work with the Ministry of Health and Welfare to develop stricter requirements for local food manufacturers establishing factories.
Minister of Economic Affairs Woody Duh (杜紫軍) said at a press conference that the government would demand that food manufacturers register their food factories and animal feed factories separately once an amendment to the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) is passed by the legislature.
Currently, many food manufacturers have two kinds of factories on the same site.
"For example, the manufacturer may have a factory to extract oil from soybeans and another factory to make the soybean dregs into animal feed," Duh said.
Industrial Development Bureau Director-General Wu Ming-ji (吳明機) said that between 200 and 300 food manufacturers have two kinds of factories at the same site.
If the firms fail to separate their factories in six months, the government will demand that they choose between operating one or the other, he said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by