Food sold at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport has recently come under criticism for being unreasonably priced.
The issue came under public scrutiny when gourmet Lucille Han (韓良露) wrote about it in her column in the Chinese-language United Daily News last month. Han said she felt ashamed of the terrible, yet expensive food sold at the nation’s main international airport.
“Let’s look at what we sell at our airport … Does it match the quality of food in Taipei or anywhere in Taiwan?” she wrote. “The beef noodle soup looks like it was taken from a packet. The buffet on offer looked rough too and so were the sandwiches, the croissants and even the Japanese Ramen. What’s more, it tasted awful. How can we talk about a food culture in Taiwan if this is what we actually bring to the table?”
Han said the beef noodle soup cost NT$250 per bowl, “which is outrageous.”
“Even though Beijing Airport has newer and better facilities, the food prices were higher than those in Taipei and the service was worse as well. That’s probably the only consolation we have,” Han said in conclusion. “But there is a bureaucratic culture in China. Can’t we look to a better role model, such as the airport in Tokyo?”
Beef noodle soup was just one of the items singled out.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Yeh Yi-ching (葉宜津) compared the food prices at Taipei 101 and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and said the latter was charging exorbitant prices for traditional Taiwanese snacks, such as pork ball soup, chicken rolls and rice with braised pork. A bowl of soup with two pork balls costs about NT$40 at Taipei 101, but the price is NT$100 at the airport.
Following the criticism, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) requested that food vendors at the airport drop their prices immediately.
To show its determination to improve catering, the CAA decided to replace the director of the airport. It also invited an award-winning store in Taipei to provide 40 bowls of beef noodle soup daily, each costing NT$150. It further vowed to protect consumers’ interests by monitoring the food prices at the airport’s terminals.
Chou Ming-feng (周明芬), a store owner at the airport’s Terminal 2, said the government should ask vendors at the airport to pay royalties annually or a percentage of revenue as commission, not both, as is currently the case. This would allow vendors to lower their prices, she said.
Cherie Lu (盧曉櫻), an assistant professor of aviation and maritime transportation management at Chang Jung Christian University, said the government needs to actively monitor the quality of service at the airport.
“Consumers feel they are being overcharged because the money they pay does not correspond to the quality of service they receive,” Lu said. “Airport officials should look at food prices at regular stores and set prices that are acceptable not only to the general public, but also to passengers from overseas.”
She cited Amsterdam’s airport as an example, where airport officials hold regular surveys to gauge the level of satisfaction of passengers.
However, not everybody agreed with Han’s observations.
“Ms Han probably has never visited Dulles Airport in Washington,” said a person named Texasgal in an online forum. “There, [she] wouldn’t be able to find food to eat.”
“NT$250 may sound like a lot of money for a bowl of beef noodle soup,” another person named Mr Fu said on the forum. “But for passengers from Japan, who have to pay more than ¥1,000, or approximately NT$300, for a bowl of Sapporo Ramen, it may seem rather a good deal.”
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,