IKEA’s Greater Taichung branch has been using expired ingredients to manufacture its popular ice cream, the Greater Taichung Government Health Bureau said yesterday.
The bureau said it received an anonymous tip on Friday last week that the global furniture brand’s Taichung branch had been using expired condensed milk manufactured by Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品) as the base for its popular ice cream.
The whistle-blower also said the bureau should “pick a weekend to raid the store because that it is when such irregularities are carried out,” the bureau said, adding that it did not rule out that the anonymous informant was an employee at the branch.
Photo: CNA
“We then sent a group of health inspectors to the branch on Sunday and as the whistle-blower had claimed, we discovered two used 10-liter bags of condensed milk with expiry dates for the previous day in a trash can in the preparation area of the store’s ready-to-eat food section,” the bureau said.
Staff then confessed to the inspectors that they had put the two bags of condensed milk in the ice cream dispenser at 12pm and 2pm respectively on that day, but said they were unaware that the milk was past its sell-by date, the bureau said.
The case has been referred for further investigation to the New Taipei City health bureau, where IKEA’s Taiwan headquarters is based.
Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) director of the New Taipei City Public Health Department’s Food and Pharmaceutical Management Division said selling food that is past its sell-by date violates Article 15 of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法), which is punishable by a fine ranging from NT$60,000 to NT$50 million (US$1,975 to US$1.6 million).
“However, given that the condensed milk was only past its sell-by date by one day before it was used, the fine is unlikely to be significant,” Lin said.
Lin said the department had questioned personnel at the IKEA Taiwan headquarters and they said that no other outlets in Taiwan other than the Taichung branch had sold food made from overdue ingredients.
“Although IKEA headquarters pledged to improve personnel training we decided to make the branches nationwide a priority for future inspections,” Lin said.
In response, IKEA Taiwan spokesperson Wu Yu-han (吳語涵) said the company attached great importance to the quality and safety of the food it sells.
“Apart from requiring local branches to comply with a set of self-management measures, we have also entrusted a third-party inspection company to conduct unannounced examinations of the stores every six months,” Wu said, adding that the most recent inspection of the Taichung outlet was carried out in May.
Wu said each bag of condensed milk can make between 120 and 150 ice creams and that customers who purchased the product at the Taichung branch on Sunday could get a full refund upon presentation of the original receipt.
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