The Hebei Province-based chemical company that exported a melamine-tainted baking ingredients to Taiwan said yesterday it had begun investigating how the leavening agent was contaminated with the toxic industrial chemical.
A sales manager of the Huaer Chemical Co (化二化工有限公司) in Xinji Township, Shijiazhuang City, identified as Ding Qinyan, was summoned to the Xinji town hall yesterday afternoon to brief “the people upstairs” on the matter, a Huaer staff member said yesterday.
The shockwave reached Huaer on Saturday after Taiwan’s Department of Health (DOH) convened a news conference earlier in the day saying that ammonium bicarbonate imported by Sesoda Corp (東碱股份有限公司) from Huaer Chemical Co and the Fuzhou City-based Yaolong Chemical Industry Group, was found to be tainted with melamine.
Deputy Minister of the Department of Health Cheng Shou-hsia (鄭守夏) said at the news conference that the melamine content in the ammonium bicarbonate, used as a leavening agent in the food industry, was between 70 parts per million (ppm) to 300ppm.
Cheng said that the department had halted the distribution of the tainted product around the country and would soon seize all ammonium bicarbonate imported from the Chinese company.
The department has also shared the information with the WHO’s International Food Safety Authorities Network.
The department announced on Friday night a ban on all imports of ammonium bicarbonate from China, adding it to the list of food imports from China already banned, including milk powder, creamers and vegetable-based proteins.
Meanwhile, the department also alerted local health and food safety authorities in the 12 cities and counties where the tainted leavening agent had been distributed and ordered a thorough investigation and seizure of the products.
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