Mon, Jul 01, 2024 page3

• Taipei health department to inspect food safety reports

  HAZARD A man and his wife found a syringe needle in their food, while another man accidentally bit into a cockroach that was mixed into his ice cream black tea

  • By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
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  The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it would send inspectors to two of the city’s restaurants, after reports that a 2cm syringe needle was found in roast meat and a dead cockroach was found in a beverage.

  A man surnamed Hu (胡) on Saturday posted on Facebook that at about 2pm on June 12, he and his wife ate at a famous Cantonese siu mei (roast meat) restaurant in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District (中正區).

  While eating, they found a 2cm syringe needle in the signature roast meat dish, Hu said.

  

  Taipei Department of Health food and drug division head Lin Kuan-chen addresses the media in an undated photograph.

  Photo courtesy of the Taipei Department of Health

  He said they immediately reported the situation to the waiter.

  A manager surnamed Chi (池) apologized to them and said that the needle could have been from vaccines administered at the pig farm.

  After negotiations, they decided to report the situation to the police and theTaipei Department of Health, Hu said.

  However, Hu said he received a response on June 20 from the city’s online petition system saying than an inspection on June 18 found no abnormalities.

  “My wife had put it (the meat with the syringe needle) in her mouth, so we want to know what chemical was in it,” Hu said. “But we have yet to receive an answer.”

  Hu asked why the inspection was conducted six days after the incident.

  The department has told the National Farmers’ Association and the Federation of Swine Cooperatives that if a needle breaks during vaccination, the pig should be marked and the needle removed from its body, to prevent it from affecting food safety, director of the department’s Food and Pharmaceutical Management Division Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) said yesterday.

  She said inspectors also inspected the restaurant on June 18 and found no abnormalities in the ingredients.

  However, they asked the restaurant to improve flaws such as being unable to provide staff health exam records, pathogen prevention records, pork purchase receipts and refrigerator temperature records within the time limit.

  Separately, a man on Saturday wrote on online bulletin board Professional Technology Temple about a Japanese barbecue chain restaurant in Nangang Station (南港車站) he and his friends went to.

  The man said he had bitten on something hard while drinking an ice cream black tea and found it was a cockroach.

  When he told management, the restaurant manager said they sprayed a new type of insecticide on Thursday, so cockroaches came out.

  The manager only offered to give them a 20 percent discount on their meal, the man said.

  In response, Lin yesterday said the department would send inspectors to inspect the restaurants, including the source of the ingredients, food handlers, environment hygiene, pathogen prevention and product liability insurance.

  If the restaurant fails to meet hygiene standards, it would be asked to improve within a given period, and might face a fine of between NT$60,000 and NT$200 million (US$1,849 and US$6.16 million) if it fails reinspection, she said.
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