Food vendors in traditional and nightmarkets are facing a bigger impact from the widening scare over the use of banned industrial ingredients in food than retail chains, according to operators in the retail sector.
Spokespersons for supermarket chains, including Carrefour and A.Mart, as wells as convenience store chains such as FamilyMart, said in separate interviews over the past few days that the discovery of a banned ingredient and an industry-grade preservative in food products has had a limited impact on their business in the past few weeks.
The chain stores said they can easily and immediately pull problematic products off their shelves. Their stores also often offer consumers several options for each product.
Consumers would keep shopping at their stores despite the food scare, they added.
However, for vendors at traditional markets or night markets, the situation is different because they often sell just one or two types of snacks and beverages, the retail chains said.
Consumers were unnerved by the discovery of maleic acid in popular food products such as rice noodles, hotpot ingredients and tapioca balls, which are used to make pearl milk tea.
The substance was later traced back to a modified starch containing maleic anhydride, a chemical used in the production of food packing materials.
Maleic anhydride is transformed into maleic acid when mixed with water and it use in modified starches is banned in Taiwan.
Meanwhile, Malaysian media reports say many stores that sell bubble milk tea drinks and Taiwanese desserts there have been hit by the starch contamination storm from Taiwan.
Coolblog, a popular dessert and beverage brand that has 250 outlets in Malaysia, has recorded a 20 percent drop in sales since the starch scandal broke in Taiwan last month, according to a Coolblog executive.
Last week, Malaysian health authorities announced a ban on the import of 11 Taiwanese food products that were found to contain traces of maleic acid, and urged local businesses to recall all the problematic products.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
RSS