Events about Waste Oil Continuously Happens in Taiwan, Food Safety Departments to Strengthen Health Supervision

In recent days, many illegal cooking oil incidents happened in Taiwan. Taiwanese police said they found underground factories producing poor quality oil in Pingtung and Kaohsiung, these factories illegally collected food recycling oil at a price of NTD12 to 20 per kilogram (about ¥2.5 to ¥4.1). They produced poor quality edible oil by mixing up "waste oil" with the tannery waste sebum oil. These illegal oil is acquired in a large number by well-known oil company Qiang’guan in Taiwan, and used for the production of edible oil "scented lard".

Taiwan's local media reports, the incident spreads manufacturers all over the island of Taiwan, such as Sheng Xiangzhen, Ve Wong, Haoyidi, Lu Shi, Xin Guan, Chi Mei, Wei Chuan, Cheung flavored, Pingao, Yi Lin, Liji and many other well-known enterprises, even the century-old brand shop. In addition, the illegal oil also flows to many eateries, street vendors and so on. Taiwan’s media even use "occupied the island" to describe the adverse impact of the waste oil events.

AQSIQ has announced that "scented lard" wasn’t exported to mainland China, Taiwan Affairs Office also issued a statement that after verification, the mainland didn’t import "scented lard" from Taiwan but downstream business products including Wei Chuan’s may enter the mainland market. It is said that a few days ago quality inspection departments in Shanghai, Xiamen, ect. found a lot of illegal products and made them off the shelf. 

Waste oil, in a broad sense, refers all kinds of low-grade oil in people’s life. Some waste oil is from the sewer greasy floating debris, while others are processed and refined from inferior pork, pig offal and the pigskin. 

After the scandal, Ye Wenxiang, waste oil producer and chairman of Taiwan's Qiang’guan knelled twice in the press conference to apologize and said that he would like to compensate gratified by his assets worth NTD300 million. As evidence of their own innocence, Ye Wenxiang also publicly drank a cup of "scented baked butter". However, it did not get everyone's understanding.

In order to completely eradicate the "cancer" harm to people's lives and health, combat against waste oil criminal should not remitted, appropriate rules and regulations should be made and kitchen waste management should be strengthened from the source.