The Consumers’ Foundation called on the government to introduce an identity system to guarantee the safety of consumers following the discovery of suspected “fake” pork floss products made without animal oil.
The foundation in June inspected 25 pork floss or pork jerky products, it said on Wednesday, adding that it found five products that failed to qualify as crude protein and three products that did not have the amount of starch required for dried meat products as stipulated by Chinese National Standard (CNS) 15144.
Pork floss products from the Sunmerry Bakery’s Yadong Hospital branch, the Yitang Bakery in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋) and a My Warm Day outlet in New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城) were found to contain only soybean oil.
Testing the primary oil content helped deduce the kind of meat used, foundation staff member Ling Yung-chien (凌永健) said, adding that pork floss at the inspected stores did not contain any lard.
While substituting lard for chicken oil could drop overhead costs, such practices are considered food adulteration and are viewed as serious incidents in Western countries, although it is yet to be regulated in Taiwan, Ling said.
Pork floss on bread is a widely sold product, foundation chairman Yu Kai-hsiung (游開雄) said, adding that it should be more strictly regulated due to its popularity.
Should stores be found guilty of false advertising, they could face fines from NT$40,000 up to NT$4 million (US$1,325 to US$132,516), Yu said, adding that pork floss is not currently an item that is regularly inspected.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
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The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
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