Expired for four years: food coloring made into pudding powder, 13,000 kg of pudding tofu pudding consumed

By Liu Yixin and Lin Peijun, reporters for Shanghai Strand

Yongyong Co., Ltd. was reported to have used food coloring that had expired for four years to make pudding powder and sold it to unsuspecting downstream operators, including a well-known tofu pudding shop in New Taipei City and three operators in Hsinchu and Tainan. According to an inventory of the company's account books by the Tainan City Investigation Office and the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau, from July 2014 it sold more than 580 kg of non-compliant pudding powder, estimated to be enough to make 13,000 kg of pudding tofu pudding.

Expired food coloring Yellow No. 4 and No. 5 made into pudding powder and egg pudding powder

On the 19th, the Food and Drug Administration, together with the Tainan City Investigation Office of the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau and the Tainan City Government Health Bureau, conducted a joint inspection at Yongyong Co., Ltd. Zhang Xinwen, deputy director of the FDA Southern Regional Management Center, said the company used food coloring Yellow No. 4 with an expiration date of June 7, 2015, and food coloring Yellow No. 5 with an expiration date of March 8, 2014, to make products such as "pudding powder" and "egg pudding powder."

I-Mei: uses fresh eggs to make pudding; Uni-President: adds whole egg powder

In addition to pudding powder being full of additives, in ordinary commercially sold egg pudding, because eggs are costly and have a short shelf life, many operators choose to use chemical additives instead of fresh eggs, creating the situation in which "there are no eggs in egg pudding."

I-Mei's public relations office said its own pudding uses whole fresh eggs as an ingredient and does not add other food coloring; in addition, the packaging of "Uni-President Pudding" states that it adds "whole egg powder."