The Department of Health (DOH) ordered a food company to take three products off the market yesterday following reports that tonnes of substandard milk powder might have made their way onto the market, while two more firms are under investigation.
Tsai Shu-chen (蔡淑貞), a section chief of the Food and Drug Administration, said three products from Ascar Food Co in Yunlin County will be taken off shelves immediately and recalled if they are confirmed to have violated safety regulations.
Two other food companies — Ching Liang Food Co in Changhua County, and Guanxin Food Industrial Co in Greater Tainan — will have some of their beverages, including cow and goat milk products examined by health officials.
The department took the action after the Tainan Prosecutors’ Office said on Thursday that it had seized 19 tonnes of suspect milk powder and that 10 more tonnes might have reached the market.
The prosecutors said Guanxin purchased powder from a salesman, Chang Che-cheng (張哲誠), of New Tai Milk Products Co that was mixed with other raw materials to produce goat milk and flavored milks, which were then sold to breakfast shops and schools.
Chang allegedly also sold questionable milk powder to Ching Liang and Ascar at 30 to 50 percent of the normal price.
New Tai Milk Products said the milk powder does not have mold or mildew, but it was about to expire or had damaged packaging, adding that it was “not for human consumption.”
“The issue highlights a loophole in the recall channel for expired and unqualified food,” Tsai said.
She assured the public that baby milk formula was not involved in the substandard milk powder probe.
She said that baby formula must be registered and approved by the department and that all the raw materials are imported, so that there should be no misgivings that locally sold formula has been tainted by the milk powder in question.
Meanwhile, New Tai Milk Products Co issued a statement saying that one of its salesmen had not followed corporate procedures for dealing with substandard products, and had sold them to clients.
“The salesman has admitted that he acted alone and that his actions had nothing to do with company policy,” New Tai said.
Guanxin said the cheap milk powder it purchased had damaged packaging and was delivered to sheep farmers for use in feed, adding it had not used the powder in its products.
Several sheep farmers showed up at a news conference called by Guanxin yesterday to back the company’s version of events.
Tainan health officials checked breakfast outlets and Guanxin products, but found no evidence of unsafe drinks or raw materials.
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,