Egg Mix-up Scandal"Executive Yuan Food Safety Office: Whether the washing facility is legal or not does not affect food safety; Chin Yi: Negligence by new employees

The annual Food Safety Management Review Meeting, held once a year to examine the effectiveness of the "Five Links of Food Safety," took place yesterday (the 10th) at National Taiwan University. In the face of the recent "egg mix-up incident" involving "Chin Yi Egg Products" and "Ruei Mu Egg Products," the Executive Yuan Food Safety Office emphasized that it was merely a "labeling issue" and not a "food safety incident," and that eggs washed at a legal washing facility are "roughly the same in terms of hygiene and safety," sparking heated discussion on site. Many consumers believe that spending a lot of money specifically to buy washed eggs yet possibly getting fresh eggs of unclear origin or not processed at a legal washing facility not only harms their rights but also greatly undermines trust in our country's agricultural product labels.

In response, the Executive Yuan will promote full washing of eggs next year and will also require eggs to be "spray-printed one by one." It is expected that a briefing session for industry operators will be held after the Lunar New Year next year, in the hope that in the future washed eggs sold in supermarkets can, like those in the EU and South Korea, have a number spray-printed on each egg, allowing "tracing the farm through the egg" and ensuring quality control at the source ranch and washing facility.

Food Safety Year-End Review Meeting Examines the Year's Implementation of the "Five Links of Food Safety" Policy

In recent years, Taiwan has seen a succession of major food safety incidents, including plasticizers, tainted oil, and fipronil eggs, highlighting the severe challenges facing domestic food management. In ROC year 105, the Executive Yuan launched the "Five Links of Food Safety" policy, hoping to use five major dimensions - "source control," "rebuilding production management," "strengthening inspection," "increasing liability for malicious and unscrupulous manufacturers," and "all-people food safety oversight" - through cross-ministerial collaborative governance, to ensure that every link from production to table meets safety standards, so that the public can conveniently purchase safe domestic agricultural products.

To review the implementation results of this year's Five Links of Food Safety, the Executive Yuan Food Safety Office (referred to as the "Food Safety Office") invited more than 100 people, including representatives from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Council of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Administration, the Ministry of Education, as well as various experts and scholars, civic groups, and industry representatives, to convene the "108th Year Food Safety Management Review Meeting" yesterday (the 10th) at the GIS NTU Convention Center.

Meeting moderator and Food Safety Office Director Hsu Fu said, "This is the annual year-end food safety review meeting, and the most important thing is to listen to suggestions from all sectors on food safety management!" Through the meeting, this year's food safety incidents and policy implementation results were reviewed, and current food safety management strategies were also examined and revised.

Food Safety Office: Eggs washed at legal washing facilities show "little difference in hygiene and safety"

However, on the eve of this year's "food safety final exam," The News Market exclusively revealed that part of the raw materials for washed eggs at "Chin Yi Egg Products," the leading company in the domestic egg industry, were unclear, and that "Ruei Mu Foods," known for producing eggs with a "production and sales traceability" label, was actually operating at an illegal washing facility. Two "egg mix-up incidents" occurred within one month, severely damaging consumer confidence in our country.

In response, the Food Safety Office publicly and formally responded today. Hsu Fu said that both incidents were "labeling issues," not "food safety issues" involving doubts about the eggs themselves, and that the authorities had immediately revoked the illegal operators' traceability labels and production and sales traceability authorization. "From a narrow perspective of hygiene and safety, basically even if eggs are not washed at a legal washing facility, the difference in hygiene and safety compared with ordinary eggs will not be too great."

Hsu Fu pointed out, "As for the hygiene and safety of eggs, in fact, as long as the egg membrane is not broken, they are safe." But he then added by way of explanation that the government will still conduct regular inspections and strictly impose penalties for illegal facts. The Food Safety Office's "equal treatment" of the food safety quality of washed eggs from legal and illegal washing facilities sparked heated discussion on site.