Tainan City Government’s Department of Health yesterday continued its investigation into the green plums used by well-known tea chain 50 Lan (50嵐), which were found to contain excessive levels of sulfur dioxide.
The department yesterday dispatched three teams of health inspectors to examine the tea chain’s 28 branches in Tainan and the company providing the tainted plums.
“Our preliminary investigation showed that the problematic batch of green plums, which expire on April 24 next year, was a custom order placed by 50 Lan, which purchased a total of 52 barrels of 3kg each of the product,” the department’s Food and Drug Section director Hsu Hui-mei (許惠美) said.
Photo: Huang Wen-huang, Taipei Times
Hsu said the plums could have had excessive sulfur dioxide levels because the company providing the plums had soaked them in edible-grade sodium metabisulfite, but failed to properly process them in accordance with standard operating procedures.
The department has requested the supplier to improve its management of food additives and to test its plum products for sulfur dioxide, preservatives and saccharin, Hsu said.
The inspection came one day after the department was informed by its Taitung County counterpart of a June 16 test of green plums used by 50 Lan, which found that the product contained 0.138 parts per million (ppm) of sulfur dioxide, higher than the maximum permissible level of 0.1ppm.
It is not the first time that 50 Lan, which has more than 500 outlets nationwide, has found itself embroiled in food scares. In April, one of its tea beverages was found to contain excessive levels of fipronil.
Hsu said the tainted green plums were mainly used at the tea chain’s Kaohsiung City stores, as well as in Pingtung and Taitung counties, adding that a total of 147.3kg of the deficient product has been removed from the shelves.
The city’s Food and Drug Section official Cho Ching-ching (卓金津) said companies in the case could face fines ranging from NT$30,000 to NT$3 million (US$962 to US$96,153) in accordance with the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法).
Yangmingshan National Park authorities yesterday urged visitors to respect public spaces and obey the law after a couple was caught on a camera livestream having sex at the park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) earlier in the day. The Shilin Police Precinct in Taipei said it has identified a suspect and his vehicle registration number, and would summon him for questioning. The case would be handled in accordance with public indecency charges, it added. The couple entered the park at about 11pm on Thursday and began fooling around by 1am yesterday, the police said, adding that the two were unaware of the park’s all-day live
Fast food chain McDonald's is to raise prices by up to NT$5 on some products at its restaurants across Taiwan, starting on Wednesday next week, the company announced today. The prices of all extra value meals and sharing boxes are to increase by NT$5, while breakfast combos and creamy corn soup would go up by NT$3, the company said in a statement. The price of the main items of those meals, if ordered individually, would remain the same. Meanwhile, the price of a medium-sized lemon iced tea and hot cappuccino would rise by NT$3, extra dipping sauces for chicken nuggets would go up
Yangmingshan National Park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) nature area has gone viral after a park livestream camera observed a couple in the throes of intimate congress, which was broadcast live on YouTube, drawing large late-night crowds and sparking a backlash over noise, bright lights and disruption to wildlife habitat. The area’s livestream footage appeared to show a couple engaging in sexual activity on a picnic table in the park on Friday last week, with the uncensored footage streamed publicly online. The footage quickly spread across social media, prompting a tide of visitors to travel to the site to “check in” and recreate the
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-ching (林宜敬) yesterday cited regulatory issues and national security concerns as an expert said that Taiwan is among the few Asian regions without Starlink. Lin made the remarks on Facebook after funP Innovation Group chief executive officer Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘) on Friday said Taiwan and four other countries in Asia — China, North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria — have no access to Starlink. Starlink has become available in 166 countries worldwide, including Ukraine, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the six years since it became commercial, he said. While China and North Korea block Starlink, Syria is not
RSS