Strong Crown's Japanese-imported lard is priced too low, and legislators question whether it is mixed with swill oil.

The cloud of suspicion over feed oil keeps growing. Besides Ting Hsin, legislator Lin Shu-fen suspects that the lard Chang Guann bought from Japan may also be problematic, because it used swill oil to adulterate cooking oil, for according to Directorate General of Customs data, the lard Chang Guann imported from Japan cost only 33-36 yuan per kg, but Japan's cost for buying oil from the United States is 250 yen per kg (about 70 Taiwan dollars), and even the swill oil Kuo Lieh-cheng sold to Chang Guann cost 26 yuan per kg, raising doubts that Chang Guann's oil sources are not straightforward.

Data from the Directorate General of Customs shows that from January to August this year, the declared price of Japanese lard arriving in Taiwan averaged about 33 yuan per kg, but Chen Chun-cheng, a lecturer at the Food Selection Forum of Chinese Culture University's School of Continuing Education, said that Taiwan pork leaf fat already costs 50 yuan per kg, and that does not include pressing and production and marketing costs. Japanese lard should be even more expensive; even if only the fat is extracted, it could not possibly be only 33 yuan. Even the lard sold by other countries is priced higher than this figure, unless Japan is using inferior oil or oil transshipped in from another country, for example China.

Lin Shu-fen also compiled her own price comparison between swill oil and Japanese lard, finding that Japanese lard is simply too cheap. Ordinary street vendors sell it to underground waste oil recyclers commonly known as "little bees" at 17-18 yuan per kg; Kuo Lieh-cheng bought it at 17-19 yuan, and Chang Guann then bought it at 26-27 yuan. She questioned how Japanese lard could cost only 33 yuan when waste cooking oil alone is close to 30 yuan.

She additionally pointed out that the feed oil Ting Hsin bought from Vietnam's Dai Hanh Phuc company cost about 20-25 yuan per kg, and after refining was sold at 50 yuan, which in any case is more expensive than Japanese lard.