Taipei County Government officials expressed anger yesterday at Wei Chuan Foods Corp’s (味全食品) failure yesterday to send representatives to a meeting to explain its handling of knock-offs of seasoning products.
The county government recently began an investigation after a tip that knock-offs of Wei Chuan’s super seasoning product had been circulating on the market. The county government’s initial investigations showed that packaging on the fake super seasoning products was very similar to that on real Wei Chuan products.
Although some of the company’s super seasoning products are marked with a laser-print logo on the product’s barcode, there is no way for consumers to determine the authenticity of Wei Chuan seasoning products that do not bear the laser mark, said Yang Shun-hui (楊舜惠), the county government’s consumer ombudsman.
They added that it is unclear what harmful health effects, if any, the false seasonings might have.
County government officials were notified at the last minute that no representative from Wei Chuan would attend the meeting yesterday morning.
The county government said they would immediately order Wei Chuan to recall all super seasoning products that do not bear the laser mark and order Wei Chuan to send representatives to the county government to offer an explanation of the incident or face fines between NT$30,000 and NT$300,000.
In response, Wei Chuan spokesperson Chen Wen-min (陳文敏) said the company would apologize to consumers for stirring up concerns over the authenticity of its products and would recall those without laser marks. However, Wei Chuan said that because it has already provided methods for consumers to tell the difference between real and fake seasoning, it did not need to attend the county government’s meeting.
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