The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it would expand its good restaurant hygiene certification mark system to more shopping districts this year, and issue the mark in four languages.
After a rare bongkrek acid food poisoning case caused six fatalities in Taipei in March, many suspected food cases were reported in the city in the following months.
The city’s health department first launched the Food Service Hygiene Rating System in 2015 to ensure food safety and that food or beverage businesses meet the standards for personnel hygiene, food process quality, ingredients, equipment and appliance cleanliness, and facility management.
Photo courtesy of Taipei Department of Health
Stores that meet the standard receive either an “excellent” or “good” rating and a certification for two years.
The Taipei Department of Health’s Food and Drug Division yesterday said it promoted the hygiene rating certification mark at the Yongkang Street (永康街) and Xinbeitou (新北投) shopping areas last year, and 126 businesses passed the inspections and received the certification mark.
Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) said the department would expand its promotion of the certification mark to Ximending (西門町) and Gongguan (公館) shopping areas this year, adding that the department encourages restaurants to apply for certification.
Moreover, as the World Masters Games are to be held in Taipei and New Taipei City next year, the health department has designed a new mark in four languages — Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean — for international tourists choosing restaurants.
Separately, local news outlets on Sunday reported that a netizen who claimed to be a former employee at a well-known donut shop in Taipei’s eastern shopping district, on Zhongxiao E Rd Sec 4, found that the shop’s kitchen had poor quality and hygiene.
The netizen wrote online that the store receives many orders daily, but the customers do not know that there is a strong smell of rats in the staff area, many expired ingredients are being used, the coffee machine is never thoroughly washed, only rinsed with water, and rats have been seen running in the kitchen.
Asked for comment, Lin yesterday said the shop had failed an inspection on Nov. 13 last year and was fined NT$180,000 for having three types of expired food in its refrigerator.
The inspection also found rat droppings under the coffee machine, a dirty countertop where the coffee machine is placed, filthy storage under the coffee machine and an unchanged coffee filter core, she said.
After receiving the report, the health department would inspect the donut shop again to check its hygiene, and an increased penalty would be imposed if it fails the inspection again, she added.
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS