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Taisugar recalls controversial health products

State-run Taiwan Sugar Corp (Taisugar) recalled all its nutritional yeast products yesterday after prosecutors in Tainan detained a former Taisugar executive and an importer for allegedly supplying hog feed to the company to produce health products for human consumption.

The prosecutors at the Tainan District Court detained Lin Ying-hua (林英華), a manager in charge of food production at Taisugar's Hsinying (新營) plant, and Tseng Fu-teh (曾福得), former owner of an import firm that supplied protein powder to Taisugar to manufacture nutritional yeast products, including vitamin yeast, flavored vitamin yeast and yeast candy.

The prosecutors searched six locations in Tainan City and Tainan County on Wednesday and questioned eight people, including four Taisugar employees.

According to Yen Jung-sung (顏榮松), chief prosecutor at the Tainan Public Prosecutor's Office, Taisugar stopped producing material for its yeast products in 1993 when the production cost rose to NT$150 to NT$200 (US$4.60 to US$6.13) per kilogram. Instead, it began to procure protein powder from abroad through Hua Wei Trading Co, managing to lower the cost to NT$38 to NT$50 per kilogram.

Yen said the protein powder imported by Hua Wei from Egypt and Belgium at about NT$10 per kilogram was meant to be used for hog feed only, and that the customs import declaration forms stated clearly that the material was not for human consumption.

However, the import firm had the material repackaged and sold it to Taisugar for producing nutritional yeast products.
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