Tainted dried tofu ordered off shelves around Taiwan
Central News Agency
2014-12-17 04:46 PM
Taipei, Dec. 17 (CNA) Still reeling from the edible oil scandals of the past few months, the government moved fast Wednesday to order suspect dried tofu products off shelves nationwide after the revelation a day earlier that certain brands had used banned industrial dyes.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has tracked down 12 distributors of food additives with the substandard ingredients, which were produced by a Tainan-based company with the Chinese name Chien Hsin, along with at least 44 food makers that use products from that company, acting FDA Director-General Chiang Yu-mei told reporters.
A comprehensive recall of affected products has been initiated, and 2,311 kilograms of tainted dried tofu of various flavors have so far been retrieved from across the country, she said.
Meanwhile, all distributors of Chien Hsin products and its customers have been instructed to report to local health departments the ingredients and other details of their products by the end of Wednesday and remove bad products from shelves by the end of Saturday, Chiang said.
Any company found selling products with the banned ingredients after that deadline will be liable for a fine of up to NT$200 million (US$6.3 million), she said. "Chien Hsin's conduct is a crime," Chiang said in no uncertain terms. The adulterated products sold by the Tainan company are emulsifiers and defoamers used in industrial production of dried tofu, a popular snack food.
They contain dimethyl yellow, a dye that has been found to cause liver cancer in animals. Chiang explained that normal emulsifiers and defoamers can be sold as long as they are legal. The bad products mixed with dimethyl yellow, which is banned from entering the food chain, can be identified by their unusually yellow color compared to the normal white color.
"When upstream suppliers are unethical, downstream companies also fall victims," complained a food company based in Daxi, Taoyuan, a major production center for dried tofu products.
(By Lung Pei-ning, Chiu Chun-chin and Elizabeth Hsu)
