Food manufacturer Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團) yesterday apologized for its slow response in recalling 21 oil products it made using adulterated oil from Chang Chi Foodstuff Factory Co (大統長基).
Ting Hsin only recalled the 21 products — sold under the Wei Chuan (味全) brand — on Sunday, 19 days after Chang Chi’s oil was discovered to contain illicit substances.
“We will take full responsibility for the incident and spare no effort to protect our customers,” Ting Hsin chairman Wei Ying-chun (魏應充) said at a press conference.
Photo: CNA
Wei said he had not known that Chang Chi’s oil contained the illegal substance copper chlorophyllin until Chang Chi chairman Kao Cheng-li (高振利) confessed to prosecutors on Saturday.
Ting Hsin said the price of Chang Chi’s oil was not so unreasonably low as to arouse suspicion. The adulterated oil cost NT$93 per liter, which is only slightly lower than the average wholesale price of NT$95 to NT$100 per liter for imported oil, Ting Hsin said.
The company purchased the oil from Chang Chi instead of from manufacturers abroad because it only uses a relatively small quantity of 30 tonnes a year to make its products, it said.
Ting Hsin subsidiary Wei Chuan Foods Corp is to give NT$50 million (US$1.7 million) in refunds to customers who bought the 21 products, Wei said, adding that customers are eligible for a refund even if they do not have the receipts or have already opened the products.
Chang Mei-feng (常梅峰), the general manager of Ting Hsin’s oil division, has resigned to take responsibility for the issue and the group will set up an investigation team to determine who else should be held accountable, Wei said.
In addition, Wei said he has also resigned as chairman of the government-funded private organization that issues Good Manufacturing Practice certificates.
Wei Chuan bought 2.13 million kilograms of soybean oil from Chang Chi to make vegetable oil, but Wei Chuan president Chang Chiao-hua (張教華) said his company stopped using that oil in August.
Ting Hsin said the company also shipped the tainted oil to China’s Fujian Province so it informed Chinese dealers on Monday to pull the products from the shelves.
Wei Ying-heng (魏應行), who is also chairman of the group and Wei Ying-chun’s younger brother, said the oil used in Ting Hsin’s fried chicken fast-food chain Dicos (德克士) is palm oil imported from Malaysia, as is the oil used to make instant noodles under the group’s Master Kong (康師傅) brand and the oil in the sauce for its noodles.
The group did not take its products off the market immediately because two separate tests conducted after Oct. 16 showed that the oil it used did not contain copper chlorophyllin or gossypol, Wei Ying-heng said.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary