Consumer protection office inspects cold-chain food: ice cream sweating and frozen meat crystallization violations found at a high rate

In the heat of summer, if you buy foods such as "sweating ice cream" or "crystallized frozen meat," you should pay attention to whether there are problems with how the seller has stored them. The Consumer Protection Committee of the Executive Yuan today released the results of an inspection of how sellers store frozen and refrigerated foods; of the 36 businesses inspected, 22 did not meet the frozen and refrigerated requirements set by the "Good Hygiene Practice for Food."

Among them, consumer protection officials saw ice cream sold by some businesses that had a "sweating" appearance because the storage temperature was not low enough, and they said it was simply too outrageous.

In July of this year, the Consumer Protection Committee of the Executive Yuan, together with the Food and Drug Administration of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and local consumer protection officials and local health bureaus in Taipei City, Taichung City, Kaohsiung City, Miaoli County, Yunlin County and Yilan County, conducted spot checks on sales channels such as hypermarkets, supermarkets and convenience stores within their jurisdictions.

In the hypermarket category, Carrefour and Far Eastern Ai-Mai had the most failures in frozen and refrigerated storage, with RT-Mart close behind; in the supermarket category, Wellcome and Sung Ching had a higher proportion of non-compliance; in the convenience store category, Hi-Life and FamilyMart had the most room for improvement.

Among the well-known chain retailers, only PX Mart and 7-11 Uni-President Supermarket performed best, fully complying with the regulations.

Carrefour's violations were more serious