A Taichung-based company was found to have sold chemicals meant for industrial use to several downstream companies for the manufacture of seasoning powder products, affecting more than 200 food companies nationwide, the Changhua County Public Health Bureau said yesterday.
Taichung’s Changhua District Prosecutors’ Office began investigating the Yi Hsing Trading Company (誼興貿易) after it was notified of health bureau findings in November last year that the Ching Hsing Hang Powder Manufacturing Factory (進興行製粉廠) and Junn Shing Pepper Powder Factory Ltd (進興製粉有限公司) had allegedly added magnesium carbonate intended for industrial use to pepper powder, the health bureau said.
On Monday, prosecutors and health agency officials raided seven locations in Changhua City and in Taichung’s Dali (大里), Taiping (太平) and Cingshuei (清水) districts.
“The raids led prosecutors to the discovery that Yi Hsing proprietor Lin Chung-chu (林中柱) had allegedly been selling magnesium carbonate for industrial use to Ching Hsing Hang and Junn Shing since 2003,” the office said in a news release issued yesterday.
The office said that the two companies then used the chemical to manufacture gourmet powder products, including pepper, chili and curry powders.
Magnesium carbonate — an inorganic salt — is a drying agent that can prevent clumping, it added.
Officials said that Lin confessed to charges of fraud and violations of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) when he was brought in for questioning on Monday night.
The office added that he was released on NT$50,000 bail.
The bureau’s Food Safety Section director Lin Yu-fen (林毓芬) said that the agency has traced Yi Hsing sales to a third downstream company, Changhua-based Cheng Ching Gourmet Powder Manufacturing Co (澄清製粉行).
“According to business records of the implicated companies from 2012 to last year, it is estimated that they have used the substance in question to produce 81 tonnes of seasoning powder involving 39 different products, including white pepper powder, black pepper powder, food colorings No. 6 and No. 7, and steamed meat powder,” Lin Yu-fen said.
A preliminary investigation showed that the questionable seasoning powders have been sold to 207 firms in 16 cities and counties, she added.
Lin Yu-fen said edible magnesium carbonate is a legitimate food additive primarily used to absorb moisture in seasoning powders.
“However, magnesium carbonate that is intended for industrial applications could contain heavy metals such as lead and arsenic because it is less refined. Long-term consumption of the substance can lead to liver and renal impairment,” she said.
The price difference between food-quality magnesium carbonate and that meant for industry could be the cause of the alleged transgression, Lin added.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
China’s newest Type-076 amphibious assault ship has two strengths and weaknesses, wrote a Taiwanese defense expert, adding that further observations of its capabilities are warranted. Jiang Hsin-biao (江炘杓), an assistant researcher at the National Defense and Security Research, made the comments in a report recently published by the institute about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military and political development. China christened its new assault ship Sichuan in a ceremony on Dec. 27 last year at Shanghai’s Hudong Shipyard, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “The vessel, described as the world’s largest amphibious assault ship by the [US think tank] Center for Strategic and International
RSS