The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday requested that Cheng I Food Co (正義股份) conduct a “preventive recall” of three of its cooking oil products from store shelves, after prosecutors discovered that the items may have been tainted with oil meant for animal feed.
The three potentially contaminated products are Cheng I Fragrant Lard Oil (正義香豬油), Wei Lih Fragrance Oil (維力清香油) and Wei Lih Fragrant Lard Oil (維力香豬油), which Cheng I Food — a subsidiary of Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團) — allegedly mixed with animal feed oil it purchased from Hsin Hao Corp (鑫好企業), a one-man company based in Greater Kaohsiung.
Hsin Hao proprietor Wu Jung-ho (吳容合), who served as a sales representative for Cheng I Food until he resigned in 2004, has been charged with fraud and violating the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法).
Photo: CNA
He has been held by the Greater Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office since midnight yesterday.
According to prosecutors’ preliminary investigation, Wu reportedly purchased 1,800 tonnes of animal feed oil from three suppliers since 2012, including 424 tonnes between February and May this year.
“It has yet to be determined how much feed oil Cheng I Food bought from Wu,” prosecutors added.
Later yesterday, the Kaohsiung City Government’s Department of Health said that Cheng I Food has purchased unrefined lard from multiple sources this year, including 424,250kg from Hsin Hao.
“Cheng I Food stored the lard oil from Hsin Hao with oil it acquired from other sources in five sumps, which together contained 474 tonnes of unrefined lard oil and which were all sealed by the department today [yesterday] pending further investigation,” the department said.
FDA interim Director-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) said Hsin Hao is one of six of Cheng I Food’s upstream suppliers the administration referred to authorities on Sept. 18 due to “suspicious discrepancies” between their accounts of their business dealing with Cheng I Food.
“However, as the administration has yet to obtain information from Tainan prosecutors showing that Cheng I Food used animal feed oil in its edible oil products, we can only urge the company to voluntarily pull the items off shelves as a precautionary measure,” Chiang told a press conference in Taipei.
The FDA will make public more detailed and accurate information as it becomes available, Chiang added.
In related developments, the Ministry of Education said that as of 5pm yesterday, 37 educational institutions across the country — 24 elementary and junior-high schools, one senior-high school and 12 colleges — have been found to have used the three potentially adulterated oil products.
“All three products had their Good Manufacturing Practice [GMP] certifications revoked in November last year. Since ministry regulations require that elementary and junior-high schools use GMP-certified oil products, we will investigate the 24 affected schools,” the ministry said.
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