Swill oil may have more unexploded bombs: major food companies exposed for having transaction records with operators

There are still unexploded bombs in the swill oil scandal! The food safety storm triggered by Chang Guann's inferior lard appears to have subsided, yet in the southern region a swill oil case is still unfolding. Local governments along with prosecutors and police have found transaction records between a certain swill oil operator and several large domestic edible oil and fat factories, and another, even bigger swill oil storm is quietly taking shape.

Swill oil cannot go into edible or feed oil, so why do major food factories have transactions with a swill oil operator?

It is reported that these edible oil and fat factories found to have transaction records with the swill oil operator all appeared on the list during last year's Chang Guann oil-adulteration storm and the subsequent case of copper chlorophyllin detected in olive oil. Since the business scope of these major food factories also spans edible oil and fat manufacturing and feed manufacturing, whether their swill oil flowed into the food supply chain awaits further investigation by the Food and Drug Administration of the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

However, the Council of Agriculture stresses that swill oil is not suitable for use as feed oil or fat, so why do these major factories that operate both food and feed businesses trade with this swill oil operator? What is the purpose of using this swill oil operator's oil products? The Food and Drug Administration of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Livestock Division of the Council of Agriculture, and prosecutors and police must investigate this clearly.

Gangs intervene in swill oil recycling, operator hasdeep local political and business connections

Sources point out that the registered business items of this swill oil refining plant at the Department of Commerce of the Ministry of Economic Affairs cover edible oil wholesale, food manufacturing, animal feed wholesale, animal feed compounding, and waste removal, so it could be said to have completely grasped the channels for the resource-based reuse of recycled waste cooking oil.

Although the operator claims that the vast majority of raw materials are processed and refined from imported feed-grade beef tallow, and that only a small portion is made into feed additives, oil residue cakes, oil residue and so on from the offal of pigs, chickens, ducks and geese through frying, filtering and pressing, the intelligence held by prosecutors and police shows that this operator's largest raw material source is swill oil, sourced from waste cooking oil collected and processed from night markets or street vendors.

Sources further state that this swill oil operator set up its legal factory registration north of Beigang River and its underground factory south of Beigang River, using legal operations to cover illegal ones in order to evade inspection. Through gang forces the operator controls the collection of waste cooking oil from night markets, street vendors and snack shops in the Beigang River basin, requiring snack stalls to hand over all their waste cooking oil to the affiliated "little bees" (the common name for underground waste haulers), who then deliver it to the operator's underground factory for storage and refining.

Because it controls the waste cooking oil collection system in the Yunlin-Chiayi-Tainan area through gang enforcement, this operator could be said to possess the largest source of swill oil material in western Taiwan, with nearly 10 tanker trucks running north and south under it, and each tanker truck even equipped with GPS (satellite positioning system) worth over a million, showing the sheer scale of its operation.

This operator's factories span different counties and cities. Counting on the fact that local government inspections will not track across jurisdictions, when accepting inspections it opens only its legal plant area for checking, while inspectors turn a blind eye to the underground factories the operator has set up in other counties and cities. In addition, this operator takes great pride in its deep local political and business connections, thriving in both the underworld and the official world, so when facing inspections it is not only arrogant and overbearing, having everything arranged for its tough talk, but also mobilizes city councilors to express concern.

Data destroyed after the Chang Guann incident; transaction records with major domestic edible oil and fat factories draw attention