Will the CAS Taiwan Excellent Agricultural Products certification mark be greatly opened up to the use of imported raw materials?

The CAS certification mark, which has always promoted "Taiwan Excellent Agricultural Products," may in the future use imported raw materials? Recently, Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji proposed that importing low-cost foreign raw materials and pairing them with Taiwan's superb food processing technology could make the CAS mark a world brand and turn Taiwan into a food processing kingdom.

At the CAS mark certification event on December 16, Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji mentioned that Taiwan's food processing technology ranks among the best in Asia, and 30-35% of domestic agricultural products are used for processing, expanding the value of agricultural products. This is the result of the efforts of CAS manufacturers using domestic agricultural products, but "insisting on using domestic products places a very heavy cost burden on CAS manufacturers. Whether to continue insisting in the future is worth careful consideration."

In the twenty-four years since the CAS Excellent Agricultural Products certification mark was implemented, it has always emphasized that "raw materials are mainly domestic products." Chen Bao-ji believes that for CAS to become a world-class brand, "we must review how to keep CAS from being restricted by the raw materials used."

Promoting CAS agricultural products internationally has always been an issue Chen Bao-ji cares about. When answering questions at the Legislative Yuan on October 30 this year, he also mentioned: "For processing imported raw materials and then exporting them, we cannot carry the CAS mark, so I am also considering how to transform this in the future."

Domestic products, the core spirit of CAS