The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday said it first received a report on June 30 that cooking oil contained the carcinogen benzopyrene at a level exceeding the legal limit, denying a rumor that the agency had received a report in May.
The rumor that the FDA had received a report in May about quality problems with cooking oil produced by Central Union Oil Corp (CUOC, 中聯油脂) was untrue, and people should stop spreading misinformation, the agency said.
FDA Deputy Director-General Wang Te-yuan (王德原) said the agency first learned of the contamination when it received a report from CUOC at 4:06pm on June 30 and immediately contacted the local health department to launch a joint inspection, trace the oil’s distribution, conduct tests and remove affected products from shelves, while keeping the public informed.
Photo: CNA
“Although CUOC was already aware of its oil abnormalities, it failed to promptly report it to authorities in accordance with the law,” he said.
On July 7, the Taichung City Government and the FDA fined CUOC NT$3 million (US$92,902) and NT$165.2 million respectively for intentionally delaying its report, Wang said.
There was no “concealment,” “cover-up” or delayed action on the part of the FDA, he said.
Meanwhile, the Taichung District Court on Saturday ordered CUOC factory manager Chen Ming-jong (陳明榮) to be detained and held incommunicado amid a judicial investigation into the incident.
Taiwan Sugar Corp (Taisugar) informed CUOC in May that oil had failed testing, and other downstream companies later notified CUOC of abnormal results, but CUOC neither stopped production nor reported the test results to authorities, the court said.
The Kaohsiung Department of Health yesterday said Taisugar had planned to purchase a batch of partially processed oil from Formosa Oilseed Processing Co, one of CUOC’s three equal shareholders, but testing found benzopyrene levels above the contractual limit, so Taisugar refused to accept delivery and the oil remained at CUOC’s factory in Taichung.
Under the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法), responsibility for reporting the abnormal test result lies with CUOC, the department said.
The act distinguishes between food products and raw materials, and the oil was a raw material, meaning that CUOC, rather than Taisugar, was required to report the problem, the state-owned company said.
Because Taisugar refused delivery, the oil never left CUOC’s plant and did not enter Taisugar’s supply chain, it added.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday questioned why Taisugar had refused delivery of the oil but had not reported the abnormal test result to the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
The ministry echoed Taisugar’s statement that any responsibility for reporting that raw material had failed testing lay with the producer, not the downstream company.
Additional reporting by CNA
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