The Greater Tainan Government’s Department of Health yesterday said that a batch of raw ingredients used in a Black Bridge Foods’ fried swordfish fiber product was found free of methyl-mercury, after the long-established company’s reputation was tainted by a contamination scare in Hong Kong.
“The ingredient was tested for methyl-mercury, lead and cadmium, and the results conformed with national regulations,” the department’s Food and Drug Office Director Hsu Hui-mei (許惠美) said.
The test results came six days after the department visited Black Bridge Foods’ Tainan factory to collect samples of its ingredients for testing, following a warning issued by Hong Kong’s Center for Food Safety a day earlier against eating the firm’s products after a sample was found to contain mercury levels of 3.5 parts per million (ppm), seven times the maximum permissible level of 0.5ppm.
On the same day, the food manufacturer voluntarily pulled 4,000 prepackaged fried swordfish fiber products from stores nationwide.
Hsu said that Taiwan has a 2ppm maximum allowable level of methyl-mercury in seafood products, as it is the most toxic form of mercury and easily accumulates in the human body and can affect the nervous system.
“The level was set in accordance with the limits set by the UN’s Codex Alimentarius Commission, the US and Japan,” Hsu said.
The Food and Drug Administration’s Northern Center Deputy Director Hsu Ching-feng (徐錦豐) said the difference in the test results between those done in Taiwan and those in Hong Kong might be because the administration tested raw materials rather than finished products as the Hong Kong center did.
“It is also worth noting that the ingredients the administration tested were not the ones used to manufacture the product found in Hong Kong to be tainted with excessive levels of mercury,” Hsu Ching-feng said.
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