The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held an emergency press conference on Wednesday to announce that another food company, the Namchow Group, is suspected of using industrial oil in its edible oil products.
Interim FDA Director-General Chiang Yu-mei said that health agencies are investigating the Namchow Group. The FDA said that there is no problem with their lard products, but they discovered what may be industrial ingredients in their beef oil, coconut oil and palm oil. The use of those industrial ingredients in food products would be illegal. Chiang said that the company’s products would be taken off shelves if it can’t prove that the ingredients were legal by noon on Wednesday.
On Wednesday afternoon, Nanchow Chairman Chen Fei-long said the government’s finding was due to negligence on behalf of their company to declare the ingredients as they went through customs. He provided documents from Australia and the Philippines to prove the oil they had used was for human consumption. Chen said he was sorry for the negligence and assured the public that Namchow's oil complies with national health rules.
The FDA said that it has received the official documents from Australia and the Philippines that show the oil is edible oil. But the FDA said it still needs to confirm the authenticity of the documents before it accepts them as proof.
The FDA's interim director Chiang Yu-mei also said that the Nanchow Group did not go through the legal procedures needed to register its food ingredients. She said the company's actions give way to suspicion as it seems they may have been trying to avoid inspections. She said a company in the baking industry should not behave in this way. "Food ingredients that come into our country must be inspected," Chiang said. "If you try to avoid inspections, the people and the government will suspect that you have a reason for doing so. So that's why I say [the company] should not behave in this way."
The Taoyuan health bureau has already taken the company's 123 products off the shelves. Chiang said the government is also organizing the list of companies that would be affected by Nanchow's products. Local governments can decide whether they want to take products that may be affected off the shelves.