Food utensils topped the list of imported food-related products that failed to meet the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) standards in the first five months of the year, followed by vegetables and tea leaves, according to statistics released by the agency yesterday.
“As of May this year, a total of 253,707 batches of imported goods had entered the country, of which 18,944, or 7.47 percent, were selected for border testing and examination,” FDA Northern Center for Regional Administration official Wang Te-yuan (王德原) told a press conference in Taipei.
Wang said that 429 batches of the tested products were found to be deficient. That translates into a disqualification rate of 2.26 percent, a sharp increase from 1.28 percent in the same period last year.
FDA Division of Food Safety inspector Chen Ching-yu (陳慶裕) said that food utensils accounted for the largest percentage of disqualified goods, with 145 substandard products, the majority of which were polypropylene (PP) utensils manufactured in Japan.
“The primary reason these products were disqualified were their heat tolerance levels, which were below what the manufacturers claimed the products could stand for 30 minutes without becoming deformed,” Chen said.
Singling out Japanese discount store chain Daiso Shop, Chen said the company was the nation’s largest importer of PP utensils, but its products had an alarmingly high disqualification rate.
“More than 6,000 batches of PP utensils were imported from Japan in the past six months, of which 5,583 batches were imported by Daiso. Of the 235 batches of Daiso products tested by the FDA during the period, 64 — or 19.7 percent — failed to meet national standards,” Chen said.
Rounding out the top five types of deficient imported goods were vegetables, with 66 batches, mainly green onions from Japan and green asparagus from Thailand; tea leaves, with 63 batches, most of which were black tea leaves from Vietnam and India; fruits, with 56 batches, primary satsuma (oranges) from Japan and cherries from the US; and food products used for medicinal purposes, with 12 batches, mostly Chinese yam and chrysanthemums from China.
“Most of these products were disqualified because of excessive levels of pesticide residues,” Chen said.
Wang attributed the increase in the disqualification rate of imported goods over the past year to the agency’s policy of conducting batch-by-batch inspections of several kinds of products, such as tea leaves and Japanese PP utensils and onions.
“All the deficient products have been handled in accordance with the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法),” Wang said.
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