Hundreds of milk farmers complained that milk is being excluded from the production of yogurt and called on the government to undertake closer monitoring of yogurt manufacturers, during a march in the streets of Taipei yesterday.
In response to the protest, the Council of Agriculture and the Department of Health (DOH) promised to check yogurt factories more frequently and carefully.
The council collects statistics on milk production and consumption. The DOH is responsible for monitoring ingredients used in food products.
"The Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection [BSMI] of the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced a national standard of yogurt in Taiwan last year which states that yogurt should be produced with pure milk. But we don't understand why the government failed to monitor those yogurt producers. Most local yogurt is produced with milk powder, which makes our lives very difficult," said Yen Zhi-hui (
During yesterday's protest, farmers urged the government to introduce regulations to force yogurt makers to produce yogurt with fresh milk.
The BSMI, however, said yogurt producers are not legally bound by its standards.
"We hope that all of the factories could produce their yogurt by following our standards, but we can't force them to do so," said Chang Wen-pin (
But representative from the DOH said that producers could be punished if their yogurt's ingredients were different from what was on the label.
"If the factories produce yogurt with milk powder but deceive the customers by listing pure milk on their products as one of the ingredients, they could be fined between NT$30,000 and NT$150,000," Hsieh Ding-hong (謝定宏), a DOH official, told the Taipei Times yesterday. Hsieh also admitted that the DOH "hasn't paid attention to the matter."
Hsieh added that there is no regulation requiring producers to label the percentages of the ingredients they use.
"We will cooperate with the Council of Agriculture on checking those yogurt producers more frequently and monitoring the amount of milk they use in their yogurt," Hsieh said.
Officials from the Council of Agriculture claimed that they are only in change of managing milk production and not yogurt, but promised to cooperate with other departments on the matter.
"We would monitor how much milk they [manufacturers] purchase for yogurt in the future," said Charles C. K. Cheng (程中江), director of the council's Animal Industry Department.
The association did not name the yogurt manufacturers it believes are not using locally produced milk. It did, however, release a list of brands it said do use local milk, which includes Yoplait (
RSS