New Taipei and Taoyuan inspect tainted dried tofu, demand that vendors recall and remove products; the rest may have flowed into traditional markets

In the case of the illegal use of the soy product emulsifier dimethyl yellow, a Ministry of Health and Welfare investigation found that six counties and cities and twelve midstream distributors used the soy product emulsifier from Qianxin Industrial Co. Health bureaus in various places are currently carrying out inspections. The health bureaus of New Taipei City and Taoyuan County dispatched personnel to investigate, and most have required vendors to recall and remove the problematic products, but the rest may have flowed into traditional markets and is not easy to identify by appearance.

Five vendors under the jurisdiction of the New Taipei City Government Health Bureau, including Guozhe Firm, Wanxin Company, Yongshun Firm, and Fangda Yu Zhengxin Food Firm, used the soy product emulsifier from "Qianxin Industrial Co." and were found to contain "dimethyl yellow." After dispatching personnel to inspect, the New Taipei City Health Bureau found that "Guozhe Firm" had recently received twenty boxes (twenty kilograms per box) and all had been shipped out, and the New Taipei City Health Bureau has required a recall; "Wanxin Company" had only one box left on hand, which has been urgently sealed, and the rest was supplied to Xindian "Fucheng Chemical," and the health bureau is tracing the flow. Because Yongshun Firm is a midstream distributor newly confirmed today, the New Taipei City Health Bureau is currently dispatching personnel to inspect it.

As for "Fangda" and "Zhengxin Food Firm," they are targets locked in by New Taipei City's Jing'an Project, and inspections have already been carried out nine times and six times respectively this year; both are currently in a state of suspended business and halted production.

Within the jurisdiction of the Taoyuan County Health Bureau, "Weishun Firm" and "Lin Sanqi" were found to have a total of eighteen downstream vendors that had used Qianxin soy product emulsifier. As of this evening, six of them have been traced, and 97.5 boxes have been returned (twenty kilograms per box); the rest were all sold, with no inventory remaining, mainly sold to traditional markets. The remaining downstream vendors are still under inspection. In addition, the Huangdamu Black Pepper Dried Tofu sold by Huangdamu Food Co., Ltd. was found to contain dimethyl yellow; the company has removed the product from shelves and is currently recalling 35.6 kilograms of dried tofu.