A May poll by the Taiwan Health Alliance on food safety policies and reduced sugar intake showed 43.4 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with the government’s food safety oversight. While disappointing, it was hardly surprising given Taiwan’s long history of food safety scandals. These most recent results were likely influenced by discoveries of Sudan red dye in imported chili powder and a food poisoning case at Taipei’s Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室), which left six people dead and 33 ill.
The Executive Yuan pledged to “re-examine and swiftly improve” the nation’s food safety management system, but new cases have again exposed systemic lapses in quality control, fragmented implementation and a lack of transparency by authorities.
On July 29, the Hsinchu Bureau of Health announced that three batches of Hsinchu Fu Yuan chunky peanut butter (新竹福源顆粒花生醬) sold at Carrefour and Taoyuan’s Wang Lii Co were being recalled after random tests conducted by the Taipei and Taoyuan public health departments in April and May found they contained excessive amounts of aflatoxins. Less than one week later, the Ministry of Environment’s Environmental Management Administration said it would destroy about 8 tonnes of mercury-contaminated rice produced in Hsinchu County. The contamination was discovered after Hsinchu City Councilor Tseng Tzu-cheng (曾資程) received a complaint. Tseng rightly pointed out that public disclosure by authorities was significantly delayed in both cases. Months passed between the discovery of aflatoxins in Fu Yuan peanut butter and the health bureau’s announcement, while nearly two weeks elapsed before the ministry publicly addressed the mercury-contaminated farmland.
Transparency is fundamental to food safety. Delayed or withheld information not only endangers consumers, but also erodes public trust in the very institutions tasked with their protection — an issue likely exacerbated by the government’s fragmented and excessively bureaucratic oversight mechanisms.
Take the Fu Yuan peanut butter case: While the Taipei Department of Health initially discovered the contamination, the delayed announcement came from the Hsinchu Bureau of Health. Fu Yuan is set to be fined for contravening the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) — a law enforced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Although the exact cause remains unknown, Fu Yuan suspects the contamination originated from its domestic supplier. If confirmed, this would suggest improper handling and storage of raw ingredients, which would constitute a contravention of the same law on the part of the supplier.
By contrast, the mercury-contaminated rice incident was managed by the Environmental Management Administration due to its connection with polluted farmland. However, if this contamination had gone undetected and the rice had entered the market, it would have triggered a complex series of legal violations to be handled across multiple regulatory bodies.
The FDA and the Executive Yuan have promised to improve Taiwan’s food safety mechanisms, but their primary focus so far has centered on preventing substandard imports. Tightened border inspections do not address the issue of substandard domestic products arising from contaminated farmland or improper handling and storage. When contamination arises from within Taiwan, it exposes critical gaps in the monitoring of local ingredients — gaps that are further compounded by slow public disclosures. Oversight of local ingredients must be bolstered with greater investment in inspections throughout all stages of production, stricter supplier quality controls and improved interagency coordination.
Restoring public confidence in food safety demands greater transparency and faster notification protocols. Consumers have a right to be informed. If the government is serious about improving food quality and safeguarding public health, it must treat domestic food production risks with the same urgency and scrutiny as imports. Public trust, once broken, is difficult to restore.
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