Taiwan DEPH scandal harms Taiwan's Rep

The DEHP scandal has damaged Taiwan's international reputation. Hong Kong stopped sales of certain Taiwan products:

The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) announced today (June 10) that two samples of Taiwan-style drinks taken at two local drinks shops were found to contain a plasticiser di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP).

The Centre instructed the two shops to immediately stop sale of those drinks. It is tracing the suppliers of the ingredients of the drinks and will collect samples for testing.

The Centre will also instruct the suppliers to suspend the supply of the affected products.

A spokesman for the CFS said, "One sample of 'green apple green tea' taken at a Taiwan-style drinks shop, 'Fan Chum Mei' (translation), by the CFS earlier was found to contain DEHP at a level of 6.8 ppm.

"The other 'icy mango drink' sample collected at 'Ice King' was detected with DEHP at a level of 24 ppm."

The "icy mango drink" sample was taken when the CFS was following up on a notification from the Taiwanese authority earlier that consignments of some fruit juice suspected to be plasticiser-tainted had been distributed to Hong Kong. It was collected from the shop concerned upon enquiries with the local importer about product distribution records.

First, note that it was "Taiwan authorities" notifying Hong Kong that there was a problem. Good PR move.... but probably too late.

In addition to Hong Kong, Malaysia and Philippines have attacked Taiwan food products. In Borneo (Malaysia) one of the local governments has asked the public to stop buying Taiwan food products "for the time being."

DEHP is used in these products as a replacement for more expensive palm oil. Palm oil is a key crop of Borneo, while Philippines is attempting to develop a palm oil industry.

A friend of mine pointed out that if the DEHP is the result of collusion between firms in the PRC and Taiwan, surely many PRC drink products must also be contaminated. Wonder when we will hear that news..... ironically, the PRC has also banned a long list of Taiwan food products.

ADDED: OzSoapbox notes:

I've been following this nonsense for a while now.


http://ozsoapbox.com/taiwan/food/the-great-2011-dehp-plasticizer-food-scare-of-taiwan/


In just the last few days;


One drug company has been found to be supplying Taiwan with a plastic tainted drug whilst providing Singapore with a plasticizer free recipe.


The head of Uni-President pleaded with the public to not blame the innocent companies manufacturing poisoned drinks, but rather the suppliers.


Taiwan's government declaring a product safe one day and recalling it the next.


And I'm sure there's many more stories still to come...

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