The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday said that a high percentage of fruit and vegetables imported from Japan have failed to pass border control inspections on pesticide residuals last year.
FDA Northern Center division head Hsiao Hui-wen (蕭惠文) said that 640,012 batches of food and related goods were imported last year, with 50,152 batches inspected by the FDA and 952 batches failing the inspections.
Although 98.1 percent of imported food products passed inspection, imports from Japan accounted for the highest portion of failed products.
Japan, the US and China ranked as the top three sources of imported goods, counted by the most batches, Hsiao said.
Imported goods from Japan were mainly snacks, food containers and sauces; while those from the US were mainly fruit, dietary supplements, and processed fruit and vegetables; and those from China were utensils, food additives and vegetables, Hsiao said.
Among the imported items that failed the inspections, vegetables had the highest failure rate and most of the cases were due to excessive pesticide residue, followed by food containers that failed heat-resistance tests and fruit that also showed excessive pesticide residue, she said.
With food and related goods from Japan accounting for about 21 percent of the total batches last year, Hsiao said Japan had the highest number of items that failed the inspections, adding that perilla, shallot and mandarins were most often found with excessive pesticide residue.
The FDA has marked fruit and vegetables from Japan that have higher failure rates as items that will be inspected more frequently, with inspection rates to be raised from between 2 and 10 percent to between 20 and 50 percent, she said.
Other items that more often failed inspections included cherries from the US due to pesticide residue, tea from Vietnam and India, polypropylene food storage containers from Japan and sauces from South Korea and Vietnam.
Hsiao said the FDA returns or destroys goods that failed inspections and could increase inspection rates on such items to as much as batch-by-batch inspections.
The agency could also publicize the brands and names of problematic products, she said.
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