Rice wine packaged in plastic bottles by authorities last year to avert hoarding of the cooking staple will reach its expiration date by year end, officials from the Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor Corp (
"With winter approaching, we hope consumers can use up their PET-bottled rice wine as soon as possible, because these products will degrade in quality after expiring on Dec. 24," said Robin Lin (
Winter is traditionally a peak season for rice wine consumption in Taiwan since the product is a popular condiment for Chinese cooking.
Lin said local consumers and retailers bought as many as 228 million PET bottles of red-label rice wine over the past few years in anticipation of a substantial surge in prices after Taiwan's entry into the WTO earlier this year.
After accession, Taiwan hiked the retail price for red-label rice wine from then NT$21 for a 0.6-liter bottle to NT$130 .
The price hike comes from the adding of a hefty NT$90 tax on each 0.6-liter bottle after Taiwan's trading partners insisted on categorizing rice wine as an alcoholic drink rather than a cooking condiment -- a condition for Taiwan's WTO entry.
As supply fell far short of market demand, distributors stockpiled the product, forcing Taiwan Tobacco -- formerly the Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Board (
According to Taiwan Tobacco, national demand for red-label rice wine stood at around 204 million bottles per year on average, said Lai Shung-tang (賴舜堂), manager of Taiwan Tobacco's liquor division.
"But with the public outcry over a shortage of red-label rice wine, we produced 300 million bottles by the end of last year, which represents an increase of 13.64 percent from the same period a year earlier," Lai said.
Following the nation's deregulation of the domestic wine and tobacco market this year, around 238 firms have applied to authorities for licenses to produce wine, with 201 firms being approved as of Aug. 15.
With the entry of new players and stockpiles of rice wine in the market, Taiwan Tobacco has so far only produced up to 720,000 bottles of rice wine per month, compared with 16.8 million bottles per month over the last four years.
"We are in a tough game," Lai said.
Taiwan Tobacco will re-introduce its red-label rice wine product in November and will hold cooking presentations later this year to regain consumer confidence in the product, he added.
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