Industrial raw materials, bleached candied fruit, pork skin, red beans, Cunde Deng food additives sold involving 6 counties and 12 businesses

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) report on the flow of non-food-grade raw materials sold by "Cunde Chemical Raw Materials Co." has now confirmed that 6 counties and cities and 12 businesses are affected, covering candied fruit shops, runbing (popiah) wrapper makers, tofu shops, red beans and more. The FDA stated that when downstream food businesses use additives, they must confirm whether they are legal additives, otherwise fines of NT$60,000 to NT$200 million can still be imposed.

Pig skin, candied fruit, runbing and red bean businesses all use industrial raw materials

In March, the FDA carried out the "Qingming Festival Common Foods Special Inspection" project and found that runbing wrappers sold by a vendor surnamed Liao in Taichung tested positive for formaldehyde at 25 ppm. The vendor was ordered on the spot to suspend operations, and 18 jin was destroyed. Follow-up investigation found that the problematic products all came from Cunde Chemical Raw Materials Co. in Changhua County.

Further investigation by the Changhua County Health Bureau found that Cunde Chemical Raw Materials Co. sold rongalite, borax, sodium metabisulfite, calcium chloride and sodium carbonate (soda ash) to downstream food businesses. Among these, rongalite (sodium formaldehyde sulfoxylate) and borax may not be used in food; although the others have food-grade raw material specifications, what Cunde sold to downstream buyers was all industrial-grade additives.

Cunde's downstream buyers were respectively Hongxing Food Co. in Chiayi County, a business operator surnamed Huang in Taichung, Zhongqing in Taichung, Xu Shuwang in Changhua County, a business operator surnamed Lin in Keelung City, and a person surnamed Chen in Miaoli County, who purchased rongalite. Among them, "Hongxing Food Co." used rongalite to make pig skin, to bleach away the color of the stamps; the resulting "fried pig skin (pengpi)" was sold to traditional markets and retailers.

Huaxing Dried Fruit Shop and Shengxing Dried Fruit Shop in Changhua County, and a red bean business in Tanzi, Taichung City, used industrial-grade sodium metabisulfite; Mingshan Dried Fruit Shop and Xieli Candied Fruit Factory in Changhua County used industrial-grade calcium chloride.

In addition, a Jingu Tofu Shop in Yunlin purchased industrial-grade sodium carbonate, but the owner claimed it was not used in food. Therefore, apart from the tofu, which is still under investigation, all the problematic products seized on site have already been removed from shelves and sealed by the local health bureaus.

Legal cover for illegal activity: Cunde can be checked on "Non-Registration Not Allowed" - who manages violations in sales?

At the end of October last year, the FDA established the "Non-Registration Not Allowed" system, requiring food businesses and food additive businesses to register themselves; the general public can check legal manufacturers and additives in the system. Currently 210,000 food and additive businesses are registered in the system; Cunde is one of them. But although the items Cunde registered were food raw materials, what it sold were chemical-grade raw materials.

For example, Hongxing Food Co. provided for inspection two raw materials legally purchased from Cunde Chemical Raw Materials Co. in November of ROC year 103: food-grade "sodium benzoate" and "Baiqing-A (sodium bisulfite-sodium pyrophosphate compound)," but the Chiayi County Health Bureau took samples of the "fresh pengpi" on site and only then discovered that it contained the illegal ingredient rongalite.

Has "Non-Registration Not Allowed" become a channel for "legal cover for illegal activity" and avoiding inspection? Zhou Peiru, section chief of the Registration and Inspection Section of the FDA's Food Division, said the correct way to use food additives is to "confirm on the system whether they can be used, whether they were purchased from a registered business, and whether the packaging is complete."

Zhou Peiru said that taking Cunde Chemical's registered "potassium sorbate" as an example, its product registration code is "TFAA1D000979000." If, when purchasing, a business finds that the registration code is missing, the packaging is incomplete, the price is cheap, or it is a "secret formula," it should suspect whether the business is passing off chemical-grade products.

But when Cunde simultaneously registers food-grade raw materials in the "Non-Registration Not Allowed" system while also selling industrial-grade raw materials, or when Cunde's downstream manufacturers knowingly violate the rules by using Cunde's food raw material information to evade inspection, how does the government handle it? Zhou Peiru said that if a business uses food packaging as an "outer garment" while the contents are chemical-grade raw materials, under the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation the maximum penalty can be imprisonment for not more than 7 years, and businesses should not defy the law; and downstream businesses, whether they knew or not, can be fined NT$60,000 to NT$200 million for using illegal additives.