A batch of cylindrical paper boxes from the Philippines, used for packing potato chips, was recently stopped at the border as the boxes contained a banned chemical, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Tuesday.
The shipment of 560kg of containers, supplied by Starkson Packaging Inc, was found to contain optical brighteners, which are banned for use under the Sanitation Standards for Food Utensils, Containers and Packages (食品器具容器包裝衛生標準), Northern Taiwan Management Center Director Liu Fang-ming (劉芳銘) said.
The FDA said the shipment would have to be returned to the vendor or destroyed.
Photo courtesy of the Food and Drug Administration
The Taipei-based importer of the noncompliant containers would face enhanced inspections, with sampling rates raised to 20 to 50 percent of shipments, Liu said, adding that it was the company's first violation in six months.
The FDA also reported that 13 other imports were stopped at the border for failing safety inspections, including fresh hallabongs from South Korea and dried red dates from China.
The dates were found to contain 0.4 parts per million (ppm) of the pesticide trichlorfon, exceeding the legal limit of 0.05 ppm, and 13.09 ppm of dichlorvos, which is banned on red dates under the Standards for Pesticide Residue Limits in Foods (農藥殘留容許量標準), Liu said.
Those items would also be returned to the vendor or destroyed.
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