Mandatory Testing for Large Food Businesses Takes Effect; Renaming of Rice Noodles and Soy Sauce Criticized as Impolite
Yesterday (the 20th), Control Yuan President Chang Po-ya unexpectedly criticized the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in front of the media over its measures to rectify the names of soy sauce and rice noodles, saying, "They just go around changing other people's names for no reason!" This left the FDA quite embarrassed, but Hsu Chao-kai, deputy director of the Food Division, said that the soy sauce measure is still in the draft notice stage, and consumers, industry operators and academics can still come forward to express their opinions; if all goes quickly, it could be announced and take effect in September. As for rice noodles, there is no specific timetable.
But compared with the unresolved name rectification, 17 categories of large food businesses are certain to have to implement mandatory testing first by the end of this (July) month. In addition to the previously announced major daily necessities, chain convenience stores with capital of more than 30 million yuan, such as RT-Mart, PX Mart, 7-Eleven and FamilyMart, must also implement it as well. Preliminary estimates indicate that 400 businesses will have to comply.
1. 17 categories of large food businesses required to undergo testing
"Scale-qualified" food businesses dealing in edible oils and fats, meat, dairy products, aquatic product processing, food additives, foods for special nutritional use, soybeans, corn, wheat, tea leaves, starch, flour, sugar, salt, soy sauce, tea beverages and the like must, starting from July 31, formulate and implement food safety monitoring plans, so that the policy guideline of "industry self-management" does not become an empty slogan.
Hsu Chao-kai, deputy director of the Food Division, explained that "scale-qualified" means businesses with capital of 30 million yuan or more that have completed factory registration, business registration, company registration, inspection registration or HACCP qualification. As for the implementation timetable, most domestic manufacturers implement it starting from the end of July this year, while importers have another one-year preparation period.
3. Rice noodle businesses want unified labeling, but the timetable and decision remain undetermined
As for the naming dispute over rice noodles, steamed rice noodles and "Hsinchu rice noodles," rice noodle association businesses previously went through the office of legislator Ker Chien-ming, hoping to stop using the current confusing regulations, and instead uniformly label them as "Hsinchu rice noodles (rice content 0-100%)."
Hsu Chao-kai said that because the temporal and spatial context is different, the opinions of the city government and industry operators are understood, but at this stage it is still learning about all sides' views, and there is no specific timetable. As for whether other traditional foods will be renamed one by one, the FDA still has no conclusion at this stage.
Soy sauce