Flavor Full Food Inc (富味鄉), a major local sesame oil producer, has admitted having adulterated one of its products sold on the domestic market with cheaper cottonseed oil, health officials said yesterday.
The company also admitted to adding flavoring agents to one of its peanut oil products, officials from the New Taipei City (新北市) Government’s Public Health Department said, adding that the company has been fined a total of NT$8 million (US$272,260) for 25 violations.
Prosecutors charged the firm’s owner, Chen Wen-nan (陳文南), with violating the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法). Chen was released on NT$2.5 million bail yesterday afternoon.
Photo: Liu Hsiao-hsin, Taipei Times
Chen later yesterday also offered a public apology for the company’s “severe negligence,” adding that the products adulterated with cottonseed oil were not harmful to consumers.
Flavor Full is the only importer of crude cottonseed oil in Taiwan besides Chang Chi Foodstuff Factory Co (大統長基), which is also involved in the current adulterated oil scandal.
Suspicions over Flavor Full products were raised after Chang Chi was found to have refined the cottonseed oil and then blended it with its Tatung-brand edible oil products to save production costs.
Flavor Full had previously claimed that the cottonseed oil it processed was only for export and that the oil was never used for products destined for domestic consumption.
However, the company admitted to New Taipei City Government investigators on Wednesday that it had lied.
The city government inspected a Flavor Full warehouse in the city’s Wugu District (五股) on Monday and sampled 11 products to be sent for testing.
The results are expected in a week’s time.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health and Welfare has launched an investigation into all 163 edible oil producers in Taiwan.
As of yesterday, 138 of them had been inspected, Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Wen-ta (邱文達) said.
Separately yesterday, former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Shih Ming-te (施明德) said that he and a group of friends would file a class-action lawsuit against Flavor Full Food to seek compensation over its adulterated edible oil products.
Shih said he paid close attention to health and food safety after being diagnosed with liver cancer in 2001, and began to purchase only natural organic products. He said that his household’s organic sesame oil was all from Flavor Full, adding that he had also recommended Flavor Full Food products to his friends.
Shih said he would donate any damages awarded from the litigation to charitable organizations.
‘CROWN JEWEL’: Washington ‘can delay and deter’ Chinese President Xi Jinping’s plans for Taiwan, but it is ‘a very delicate situation there,’ the secretary of state said US President Donald Trump is opposed to any change to Taiwan’s “status quo” by force or extortion and would maintain that policy, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Hugh Hewitt Show host on Wednesday. The US’ policy is to maintain Taiwan’s “status quo” and to oppose any changes in the situation by force or extortion, Rubio said. Hewitt asked Rubio about the significance of Trump earlier this month speaking with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) at the White House, a meeting that Hewitt described as a “big deal.” Asked whether the meeting was an indication of the
‘RELATIVELY STRONG LANGUAGE’: An expert said the state department has not softened its language on China and was ‘probably a little more Taiwan supportive’ China’s latest drills near Taiwan on Monday were “brazen and irresponsible threats,” a US Department of State spokesperson said on Tuesday, while reiterating Washington’s decades-long support of Taipei. “China cannot credibly claim to be a ‘force for stability in a turbulent world’ while issuing brazen and irresponsible threats toward Taiwan,” the unnamed spokesperson said in an e-mailed response to media queries. Washington’s enduring commitment to Taiwan will continue as it has for 45 years and the US “will continue to support Taiwan in the face of China’s military, economic, informational and diplomatic pressure campaign,” the e-mail said. “Alongside our international partners, we firmly
KAOHSIUNG CEREMONY: The contract chipmaker is planning to build 5 fabs in the southern city to gradually expand its 2-nanometer chip capacity Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, yesterday confirmed that it plans to hold a ceremony on March 31 to unveil a capacity expansion plan for its most advanced 2-nanometer chips in Kaohsiung, demonstrating its commitment to further investment at home. The ceremony is to be hosted by TSMC cochief operating officer Y.P. Chyn (秦永沛). It did not disclose whether Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) and high-ranking government officials would attend the ceremony. More details are to be released next week, it said. The chipmaker’s latest move came after its announcement earlier this month of an additional US$100 billion
Authorities yesterday elaborated on the rules governing Employment Gold Cards after a US cardholder was barred from entering Taiwan for six years after working without a permit during a 2023 visit. American YouTuber LeLe Farley was barred after already being approved for an Employment Gold Card, he said in a video published on his channel on Saturday. Farley, who has more than 420,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, was approved for his Gold Card last month, but was told at a check-in counter at the Los Angeles International Airport that he could not enter Taiwan. That was because he previously participated in two
RSS