FDA New Year Holiday Food Inspections: Serious Violations Found in Dried Daylily and Bamboo Fungus; Well-Known Restaurants Kuan-Hsin Yuan and Jing Hao Lou Wedding Banquets Both Listed

Text/Food and Drug Administration

To safeguard the public's food safety during the Lunar New Year holiday, the Food and Drug Administration in December of last year (2014) instructed the health bureaus of county and city governments to conduct inspections and random testing of New Year foods sold at business premises across Taiwan such as New Year goods streets, hypermarkets and traditional markets. As of February 9, 2015, a total of 1,161 items had been randomly tested, and 84 items failed to meet regulations, for an average pass rate of 92.8%. (To view the list of non-compliant items, please click here.)

The Food and Drug Administration tallied random tests by health bureaus across all counties and cities of Taiwan covering soy products (dried tofu, tofu, seasoned dried tofu products, etc.), wet rice products (rice cakes, nian gao, fa gao, radish cakes, etc.), processed nut products (peanuts, melon seeds, pistachios, etc.), dried aquatic products (dried shrimp, dried scallops and shredded squid, etc.), processed meat products (sausages, cured meat, jerky, etc.), dehydrated vegetables (dried daylily, dried bamboo shoots, etc.), pickled vegetables (preserved radish, pickled mustard greens, etc.) and candied fruit products (kumquats, olives, dried fruit, etc.), randomly testing a total of 1,161 products for preservatives, bleaching agents, sweeteners, nitrites, microorganisms and other items, with 84 items failing to meet regulations;

Among them, dehydrated vegetable products accounted for the highest proportion of non-compliant products, with the main violation being detection of excessive bleaching agent (sulfur dioxide); the bamboo fungus from New Taipei City's Jing Hao Lou Classic Wedding Banquet Hall was found to contain 43.46 grams of sulfur dioxide per kilogram, exceeding the standard by 86 times, the most serious case.

Next were soy products, with violations due to detection of excessive preservatives (benzoic acid) and hydrogen peroxide residue; candied fruit products were found to contain excessive sweeteners. The list of non-compliant items is in the attachment at the end of the article.

For non-compliant products, the health bureaus of all counties and cities have notified vendors and suppliers to remove them from shelves immediately, and have handled the cases in accordance with the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation. The use of food additives in food shall comply with the Scope, Application and Limitation Standards of Food Additives under Article 18 of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation; violators may be fined up to NT$3 million, and in serious cases may be ordered to suspend operations or close down; if vendors cannot provide the source of non-compliant products, they may be fined NT$30,000 to NT$3 million under Article 32 of the same Act.

The Food and Drug Administration urges consumers to choose fully packaged foods when buying New Year foods, and to pay attention to the product name, contents, names of food additives, expiration date, nutrition labeling and manufacturer on the packaging, to avoid products with overly bright colors, pungent odors or unnatural flavors, and to consume them as soon as possible after purchase, storing any unfinished portions properly to ensure freshness and food safety.

In addition, when purchasing dehydrated vegetable products such as dried daylily and bamboo fungus, consumers should avoid products that are too brightly colored or too snow-white. Consumers are advised to soak dried daylily products in clean water or warm water for more than 30 minutes before cooking, rinse them and then put them in the pot, which can remove 70 to 80 percent of the sulfur dioxide; if the pot is boiled uncovered for about 3 minutes during cooking to let the sulfur dioxide evaporate, more than 90 percent of the sulfur dioxide residue can be removed.

• Attachment 2 - List of Non-Compliant Products from the 2015 Taiwan-wide New Year Food Inspection