Taiwan’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has seized mislabeled lard imported from Hong Kong.
The FDA seizure comes after Hong Kong’s Center for Food Safety confirmed Wednesday that the lard, which was labeled for use in cooking, was in fact feed oil intended for animals.
The oil was exported by Hong Kong-based Globalway Corp. The importer of the oil, Chang Guann Co., Ltd., is already at the center of a food safety scandal involving the sale of reprocessed oil.
Following the seizure of the lard, Deputy Director-General of the FDA, Chiang Yu-mei said Thursday that the FDA will begin inspecting all batches of oil from Hong Kong. Chiang also said that beginning Thursday, the FDA will no longer accept oil inspection reports from private groups. Importers will need to provide notarized inspection reports instead.
The FDA has found that Chang Guann imported a total of 2,385 tons of lard from Hong Kong since 2008.
In response to this latest development in the unfolding food safety scandal, President Ma Ying-jeou said Thursday that both the central government and local governments share some of the blame. He said that both the central government and local authorities must cooperate to review what happened and improve their oversight of food safety.