Six out of 12 samples of imported or locally grown strawberries sold in Taiwan in January were found to contain excessive amounts of pesticide, the Consumers’ Foundation said yesterday.
The 12 samples — six from Taiwan, five from Japan and one from South Korea — were randomly selected from hypermarkets, supermarkets, fruit shops and traditional markets in Taipei, Taichung, Changhua County and Kaohsiung, foundation chairman Terry Huang (黃怡騰) told a news conference.
Among them, four samples — two imported from Japan and two locally grown — were found to contain excess amounts of pesticide residue, as well traces of pesticides not allowed for use on strawberries in Taiwan, Huang said.
Photo: CNA
Retailers caught selling strawberries with excess amounts of pesticide or banned pesticides face fines of NT$60,000 to NT$200 million (US$2.112 million to US$7.04 million), the foundation said, citing the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法).
Serious breaches might result in mandatory business suspensions or closures, it added.
Each of the two locally grown substandard strawberry samples was found to contain one pesticide not authorized for use, foundation head inspector Ling Yung-chien (凌永健) said, adding that the contamination might have been caused by pollution from nearby areas or the growers mixing pesticides.
Another four locally grown strawberry samples passed the inspection, but seven to 17 different pesticides were found to have been used on them, he said.
Four out of five samples of Japanese strawberries failed the inspection — a failure rate of 80 percent, he said.
However on the Japanese sample that passed the inspection, fewer types of pesticide were used compared with the locally grown ones that passed the test, Ling added.
From January 2020 to last month, border inspections found 51 samples of imported strawberries to be substandard, he said, adding that 39 were from Japan, accounting for 76 percent of all substandard strawberries found at the border.
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