Taipei Food Safety Ordinance Draft Hits a Snag: Councilors Question Feasibility of Mandatory Online Registration for Small Eateries, Demand Further Review

The first session of the Taipei City Council ended yesterday (the 2nd), and the most closely watched item, the draft Taipei City Food Safety Self-Governance Ordinance (abbreviated as the draft Food Safety Ordinance), was shelved. Lawmakers from both the blue and green camps, including Deputy Speaker Chou Po-ya, held that many provisions of the draft Food Safety Ordinance overlapped with the central government's Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation, and that the draft's requirement forcing small food and catering businesses such as night markets and food stalls to register their ingredient sources online was questioned over its feasibility, so the draft was sent back to the city government for further communication.

Establishing and implementing a Taipei City food safety self-governance ordinance is one of Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je's important campaign promises

In response to these questions, Wang Ming-li, Director of the Food and Drug Division of the Taipei City Department of Health, explained that in order to further implement the recommendations of the Good Hygienic Practice Guidelines (GHP) for catering businesses, Article 27 of the GHP was incorporated into the draft Food Safety Ordinance; and since catering notification adopts an "advance system," businesses only need to notify in advance if they take orders for more than 200 people, regardless of the number of people on site.

As for the tracking and tracing part, although the central Food and Drug Administration currently requires food manufacturers to mandatorily register their ingredient supply sources, local health departments have faced situations when inspecting ice drinks or night market vendors where operators could not clearly account for the sources of their ingredients, which is why the Taipei City draft Food Safety Ordinance was drafted to be more comprehensive than the central Food Safety Act, requiring small food or catering businesses such as night markets and snack shops to mandatorily register online.

Wang Ming-li further stated that after the draft Food Safety Ordinance is passed in the future, the Taipei City Department of Health will give priority to requiring four categories of food businesses within its jurisdiction -- school lunches, stores, chain businesses, and night market vendors -- to mandatorily register their ingredient sources online; however, operators with capital of less than 30 million yuan may not need to register on the Food and Drug Administration's "Non-Traceable" system, but must register on the Taipei City Department of Health's "Ingredient Registration Platform."

Wang Ming-li also said that although the draft Food Safety Ordinance has not yet been passed, school lunch group meal providers in Taipei City have already accepted guidance from the Department of Health and have comprehensively registered their ingredient sources online. As for how to require snack shops or night market vendors, which councilors questioned, to implement this, Wang Ming-li admitted that it is indeed harder to handle; in addition to the many items sold by food stalls, which makes "ingredient sources quite complex," how to unify the product names uploaded by different vendors is also a major problem.

Therefore, Wang Ming-li stated that the Taipei City Department of Health will invite operators such as snack shops and vendors this month to discuss implementation details. As for ice drink and store operators, they had already completed guidance on online registration before the end of June. She said that although the draft Food Safety Ordinance could not be passed in this session, it has been listed as a priority bill for the council's next session, and if all goes smoothly, it is expected to be passed and take effect in September.