Cabinet-Level Food Safety Office Set Up After Food Oil Scandal

Oils are used to cook meals and produce foodstuffs, but now we find that big, well-known makers of oils and foods have been palming off adulterated products onto a previously unsuspecting public that is now worried and angry. Food makers, as well, have been severely affected.

President Ma has said he is just as angry as anyone else about the situation. In his recent National Day Address, he commented that the scandals have aroused people’s fears and damaged the overall image of our nation, adding: “This type of crooked behavior is totally unacceptable to me, just as it is to all our citizens.”

The tainted oil scandal first erupted late last year when it came to light that improper ingredients were being mixed into food oils. Since then, the scandal has continued to snowball with each new disclosure that hits the headlines. The first problems to be discovered were the mixing of cottonseed oil into other types of oil, and the use of copper chlorophyllin as a coloring agent for olive oil. Then we learned this past September that recycled waste oil was making its way into pork lard, and that animal feed oil was being mixed into pork lard meant for human consumption.

The Office of the President has stated that Taiwan’s food makers have already seen their output value fall by NT$16.6 billion due to the tainted lard incident, and has characterized the situation as a national security problem.

In the week following October 13, the president met twice with senior national security officials, and elevated the tainted oils food safety crisis to the level of a national security issue. In the first meeting, President Ma instructed the Executive Yuan to upgrade and expand its food safety promotion task force to become the Food Safety Office.

The Food Safety Office has four divisions—regulation and coordination; emergency response and communications; inspection and enforcement; and information services—and is staffed by about 25 officials seconded from the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Council of Agriculture, the Ministry of Justice, the National Security Bureau, and the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office.

The first action of the Food Safety Office has been to put different government agencies in charge of regulating the importation of different kinds of oils. As of November 1, imported animal feed oils require a permit from the Council of Agriculture to get through customs, and imported industrial-use oils need a permit from the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Imported food oils, meanwhile, are regulated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Food and Drug Administration; in addition to a customs permit, they are also subject to 5% random inspections.

Besides lambasting shady food makers, President Ma also called on both the ruling and opposition camps to act with all possible speed to pass an amendment to the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation. Taiwan needs to be moving ahead on both the legislative and regulatory fronts, said the president, to ensure food safety.

The Legislative Yuan’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee is now in the midst of deliberations on a draft amendment to the aforementioned act, and legislators from both camps have already reached a consensus to require that foodstuffs and non-food products must be manufactured in separate factories under separate authorizations. The draft amendment would prohibit food manufacturers from manufacturing, processing, or blending non-foods at any location or plant that is being used to manufacture foods. The idea is to prevent gutter oil, animal feed oil, or industrial-use oil from being used in the food production process.

In addition, the amendment would provide for stiffer penalties than before. Under the pre-amendment provisions, any firm that manufactures, processes, blends, packages, transports, stores, sells, imports, or exports foods, food additives, food implements, or food industry cleaning agents that harm public health or, upon risk assessment, are found likely to cause such harm, will be subject to an administrative fine of NT$60,000 to NT$50 million. Under the draft amendment, the maximum fine would be increased to NT$200 million.

Fraudulent oils have undermined food safety in Taiwan and tarnished our reputation as a food lover’s paradise. By establishing the cabinet-level Food Safety Office, coordinating enforcement action at the central and local levels, and amending the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation, Taiwan’s government is standing resolutely by its people in an unwavering fight to keep dishonest manufacturers from threatening our country.