Several of Wei Lih Food Industrial Co’s (維力食品) popular instant noodle brands yesterday became the latest products to be involved in the adulterated oil scandal after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a list of products the company made using Beei Hae Oil and Fats Co’s (北海油脂) allegedly adulterated lard-based items.
Wei Lih used Beei Hae Oil’s allegedly inferior lard-based oils to produce 46 food items in 2010, 51 items in 2011, 55 in 2012 and 52 last year, the agency said in a press release, citing a preliminary investigation conducted by the Changhua County Government’s Public Health Bureau.
The products include braised beef, stewed pork and Taiwanese satay beef-flavored instant noodles marketed under the brand Yi To Tsan (一度贊), as well as Beijing-style fried sauce noodles and “hellish” spicy noodles sold under the Ta Kan Mien (大乾麵) brand.
“The last time Wei Lih purchased lard-based oils from Beei Hae was on Nov. 18 last year and the entire batch of oil had been used up before Jan. 4 this year. The last batch of food products made from the oil expired on July 4,” the agency said in the press release.
No recall order has been issued because all of the products are past their expiry dates and therefore would no longer be on store shelves, the FDA said.
The agency released the list 10 days after Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said that Wei Lih had imported 2,880 tonnes of potentially problematic oil from Beei Hae between 2008 and last year.
Chen also criticized the agency’s decision not to pull Wei Lih’s instant noodle products off the shelves on the grounds that only oils sold this year by Beei Hae have so far been found to have been adulterated with low-grade fats and oils not suitable for human consumption, including animal-feed-grade oil and fat layers from hog hides intended for making leather products.
FDA Interim Director-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) said prosecutors have yet to find any evidence suggesting the oils sold by Beei Hae before this year had been adulterated, which means the products on the list released yesterday are “not necessarily problematic.”
The agency late on Sunday also released a long-awaited list of 23 Uni-President Enterprises Corp’s (統一企業) products that were made from allegedly animal-feed grade coconut oil imported from Vietnam-based oil manufacturer Dai Hanh Phuc Co (大幸福公司) in 2012.
The list included three types of popular puddings, six kinds of ice cream products and 14 bakery or biscuit items.
The FDA had previously refused to release the list, saying that all the products made with the inferior oil were long past their expiry dates.
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