An investigation of 29 university campus restaurants found 21 to be in contravention of food safety regulations, with breaches ranging from bacterial contamination to serving expired food, the Executive Yuan’s Consumer Protection Committee said.
The probe, which took place in April and last month, rated restaurants on campuses in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Hsinchu City, Taichung, Changhua City and Yilan City, on 24 points of compliance, committee official Wang Chih-hung (王志宏) told a news conference in Taipei on Wednesday.
Eight restaurants met all food safety requirements, while only one — Zhi-De Vegetarian at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) in Taipei — was also in full compliance with environmental and fire safety rules.
Photo courtesy of the Consumer Protection Committee
The most common food safety contravention — found at 10 of the eateries — was failure to arrange annual health checks for employees, which risks the spread of infectious lung or liver diseases, Wang said.
Another eight restaurants had unsanitary conditions, such as greasy floors or standing water, while six had improperly covered food products, four had cockroaches on site and three had frozen food stored at above minus-18°C, Wang added.
Of the two restaurants cited for using expired ingredients, the most serious contravention was at Ba-Yang Snacks at NTNU, where inspectors found six outdated products, including pickled vegetables that expired in 2018, committee member Wang Te-ming (王德明) said.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare is investigating the findings at the restaurant, but has yet to issue a fine.
The committee said that beverages at seven of 20 restaurants were found to have Enterobacteriaceae levels higher than the legal limit of 10 colony-forming units per milliliter.
Of those, Hsin Chi Yeh Barbeque Rice near Fu Jen Catholic University in New Taipei City and Ji Pin Hong Kong-style lunchbox store had contamination levels greater than 1,000 times the legal limit, the committee said.
Beloved Xiaolongbao, near Yuan Ze University in Taoyuan, had the most overall contraventions, including eight for food safety and seven related to its use of gas cylinders, it said.
All 22 restaurants checked for frying oil quality passed inspection, it said.
The inspections resulted in three restaurants being fined a combined NT$215,000 for safety issues related to improper use of liquefied gas cylinders and one for breaching recycling laws, it said.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.