Premier orders Central Union oil tests completed within a week

Taipei, July 13 (CNA) Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) on Monday ordered health authorities to complete within a week all testing of samples linked to tainted cooking oil produced by Central Union Oil Corp. and draft amendments to food safety regulations within the same timeframe as the scandal continued to widen.

Chairing a special Cabinet meeting on the case, Cho issued five directives covering testing, conditions for returning recalled products to store shelves, regulatory reform, school food safety and consumer protection, Cabinet spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said in a statement.

Cho said all oil batches confirmed to have been contaminated have been ordered removed from sale, while all edible oils and related products made using Central Union oil produced between April and June have been recalled as a precaution.

Of the 29 batches of oil produced by the company during that period, three were never shipped and downstream products made from five batches have tested above the legal limit for the carcinogen benzo[a]pyrene (BaP). Samples from the remaining 21 batches are still being tested, and Cho ordered all inspections completed within a week.

Cho also instructed the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) to establish rules allowing recalled products removed as a precaution to return to store shelves only after passing inspections conducted by the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) or accredited third-party laboratories, with each batch verified and supply chains cross-checked.

The MOHW was also directed to publish draft amendments to the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation and related regulations within a week.

The proposed changes will tighten oversight of raw materials and manufacturing processes, require more frequent self-testing by manufacturers, strengthen oversight of in-house laboratories and increase inspections of high-risk operators, according to the statement.

The Ministry of Education was instructed to continue tracking affected school lunch supply chains, while economic and consumer protection authorities were directed to coordinate product refunds and ensure stable domestic supplies of cooking oil and animal feed, Lee said.

The directives came after the Taichung City government on Monday identified two additional contaminated batches of oil and hundreds of downstream businesses that received products made from them.

Health Minister Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said Sunday the TFDA is withholding test results from all 29 batches because it suspects some retained samples provided by Central Union have been falsified after discrepancies emerged between the company's samples and tests of downstream products.

Central Union was fined NT$165.2 million (US$5.2 million) on July 7 for failing to promptly report excessive BaP levels in its soybean cooking oil.

The case surfaced in late June when Central Union reported a 1,300-metric-ton batch of soybean oil produced on April 4 contained BaP at four times the legal limit -- nearly three weeks after the company said it first learned of the problem.

As of Sunday, 144 metric tons of affected products had been recalled nationwide, the TFDA said.