A cross-ministerial food safety inspection and crackdown team under the Executive Yuan has embarked on the first wave of inspections targeting six kinds of food products manufactured in the country.
Starting this month, manufacturing sites of milk, rice, egg and organic agricultural products, soy sauce and Lunar New Year food products are to be inspected in turn within the next six months, with the 20 milk factories belonging to 17 manufacturers being the first to be inspected, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday.
For the milk products, veterinary drug residues, the sources of raw materials and additives, and environmental hygiene are among the areas to be examined.
The Taoyuan factory plant of Kuang-chuan Co (光泉), one of the major milk product companies in the country, was spot-checked yesterday by the team composed of officials from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Council of Agriculture and the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
“We are checking whether the manufacturer has properly carried out self-management. Other areas to be checked include the source of the raw materials, the way it conducts its rapid screening tests [for drugs in milk], the factory’s hygiene, the raw materials in the warehouse and temperature control,” FDA Deputy Director-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) said.
According to the FDA, the council is to test the residues of 86 kinds of veterinarian drugs of six categories in the raw milk, while the ministry is to examine the company’s GMP products.
The result of the inspections is to be made public before the end of this month.
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