Buying a cake for Mother's Day: check the labeling to be reassured

(Taiwan Commercial News) Mother's Day is approaching, and many people will buy cakes as gifts to celebrate the holiday. In order to let consumers eat healthily and safely, the Legal Affairs Bureau of New Taipei City specially assigned consumer protection officers to investigate 15 pastry and baking businesses within New Taipei City, mainly conducting an investigation into the labeling of cakes sold on the market, in order to protect consumers' food safety.

Consumer protection officers stated that Mother's Day cakes sold on the market belong to bulk food. According to the "Regulations on Labeling of Bulk Food" announced by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the product name and country of origin (or wording of equivalent meaning) should be labeled. This investigation found that 4 businesses did not label the country of origin, and consumer protection officers have required the businesses to make immediate improvements; in addition, consumer protection officers found that 4 businesses did not clearly label the manufacturing date or expiration date. Although the manufacturing date or expiration date is not a mandatory labeling item for such bulk cake products, and the businesses will orally inform consumers of the best-tasting period at the time of sale, in order to protect consumers' food safety, consumer protection officers still provided guidance and suggested that businesses should clearly label the manufacturing date or expiration date.

In addition, although storage methods, nutrition labeling, calories, size (or weight), etc. are not items required to be labeled under the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation, according to Article 5 of the Consumer Protection Act, businesses should strive to enrich consumer information and provide it for consumers to use, so that they can take correct and reasonable consumer actions. This investigation also found that many businesses had proactively labeled information such as storage methods, nutrition labeling, calories, size (or weight). Therefore, consumer protection officers suggest that when purchasing such products, consumers should, in addition to considering the product's appearance and preferred flavor, also pay attention to information such as storage methods and nutrition labeling, and should properly store and consume them in appropriate amounts according to the labeled information, so as to present the product's best flavor while also taking their own health into account.