Rogue firms caught importing catfish and selling it as codfish: FDA
2015/11/17 17:14:48
Photo courtesy of Changhua County Public Health Bureau
Taipei, Nov. 17 (CNA) Two companies in Changhua County could be subject to stiff fines after they were found to have imported frozen catfish from Vietnam and then processed and sold it as cod fillets, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Tuesday.
The FDA, working with prosecutors, policemen and health officials in Changhua, raided the two firms, Enormous Foods Enterprise Co. (光大食品企業社) and Hsiang Tai Fishery Co. (祥泰漁業有限公司), on Nov. 11.
Chiu Hsiu-yi (邱秀儀), director of the FDA's Central Center for Regional Administration, said the two companies imported raw and processed frozen catfish from Vietnam to produce fish fillets that were then labeled as "homemade Japanese style codfish," which constitutes false labeling.
In raiding the two firms, investigators also discovered products that had expiration dates of Dec. 30, 2016 even though their preservation period was only one year.
The Changhua District Prosecutors Office has begun investigating the two companies for violations of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation as well as fraud and document forgery under the Criminal Code, she said.
Under the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation, false labeling of foods or misleading claims are subject to fines of between NT$40,000 (US$1,220) and NT$4 million, and the products involved are to be recalled within a certain period and cannot be sold before the problem is corrected.
Yeh Yen-po (葉彥伯), the head of the Changhua County government's Public Health Bureau, said Enormous Foods, a family business affiliated with Hsiang Tai, imported 111 metric tons of catfish from Vietnam, and produced 100 metric tons of codfish fillets for sale to downstream companies.
Yeh said Enormous Foods produced codfish fillets for four companies in Changhua County, New Taipei, Hsinchu City and Taichung.
According to Yeh, Vietnamese catfish is a fresh water aquaculture fish. It poses no harm to human health and its nutritious value is generally no different from that of other fish, but it costs about one-fourth the price of codfish.
Although Enormous Foods argued that it's a common practice to market catfish as codfish, officials are tracking the final destinations of its shipments.
Changhua prosecutors have interviewed the head of Enormous Foods surnamed Lin, who was released on NT$50,000 bail after questioning.
(By Lung Pei-ning, Wu Tze-hao and Lilian Wu)
