After a plasticizer food scare in May last year, 10 more products have been found to contain excessive levels of plasticizers, Taipei City’s food and drug division said yesterday.
Plasticizers are chemical additives used to make plastic more pliable, but they were found in food additives such as clouding agents — a food additive used to emulsify drinks and make them look more appealing — sparking a food scare.
The 10 new products that were found to have excessive levels were pineapple sauce from Shih Hung Foodstuffs Co, containing 16.99 parts per million (ppm) of di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP); peach juice from Trojan Corp, containing 48ppm of DEHP and 41.5ppm of diisononyl phthalate (DINP); vegan Sa Cha sauce with 342.9ppm of DINP; Santa Cruz’s “100% organic lemon juice” with 7.2ppm of diisodecyl phthalate (DIDP); an infant diet probiotic enzyme product from Liang Chun International Co with 159.7ppm of DEHP and 14.8ppm of DINP; Guangming pills from Wellslifes Biotech Co with 12.7ppm of DEHP; Huiyo food capsules from NatureWise Biotech & Medicals Corp with 24.1ppm of DEHP and 39.5ppm of DIDP; tuna fish oil capsules from Hsu Yin Co with 31.4ppm of DEHP; Toona sinensis sauce with 1,545.6ppm of DINP; and mushroom sauce from Cheng Tai Soysauce Foodstuffs Co with 1,944.2ppm of DINP.
Photo: Lin Hsiang-mei, Taipei Times
Division director Chen Li-chi (陳立奇) said the Cheng Tai Soysauce products exceeded Department of Health standards by about 200 times, but preliminary inspections found the plasticizer originating from the plastic film inside the bottle cap and not directly added to the food.
“We are still looking into the matter to determine the actual cause,” Chen said.
Chen said Liang Chun International Co, producer of the baby food product, had been fined NT$30,000 in accordance with Article 35 of the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) for not responding to the Taipei City Bureau of Health.
Taipei City Bureau of Health Secretary-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) said that of the 10 products, six were from outside Taipei and the city government had asked the bureaus in the products’ areas of manufacture to look into the matter.
The four firms registered in Taipei were asked to recall their products immediately, as well as conduct immediate inspections of all original materials, processing procedures and end-of-line packaging materials to pinpoint the source of the plasticizers, Chiang said.
However, Cheng Tai Soysauce said since the plasticizer scare last year, it had cooperated fully with the Yunlin County Bureau of Health in the mass recall and destruction of possibly problematic products.
Its owner said testing by the National Pingtung University of Science & Technology and the National Formosa University in August last year found its products to be within regulations and safe to eat.
The owner said the products the Taipei City Bureau of Health examined were set to expire in November and it was possible they were left over from last year’s plasticizer scare.
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