Costco-imported frozen vegetables fail Taiwan pesticide inspection

Taipei, July 14 (CNA) A shipment of frozen mixed vegetables imported by Costco from the United States was recently intercepted at the border after testing positive for excessive pesticide residues, the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) said Tuesday.

The shipment of 10,756 kilograms of "Kirkland Signature" brand vegetables were ordered returned or destroyed and none had entered the market, the TFDA said in its weekly report.

Liu Fang-ming (劉芳銘), director of the TFDA's Northern Taiwan Management Center, said the product contained peas with 0.06 parts per million (ppm) of dimethoate and 0.01 ppm of omethoate, while the broccoli was found to contain 0.002 ppm of fipronil.

Under Taiwan's food safety standards, dimethoate and omethoate must not be detected, while the maximum permitted level for fipronil and its metabolites is 0.001 ppm.

Because this was the importer's first failed inspection case in the past six months, Liu said, the TFDA has increased border inspection sampling rates for items imported by Costco Taiwan Co. to 20-50 percent, up from routine random checks of 2-10 percent.

On Tuesday, the TFDA also announced nine other products that recently failed safety inspections, including fresh oranges from Japan and two shipments of cheese imported from France.

In one cheese shipment imported by New Taipei-based P&P Food & Spices Ltd., three of five samples were found to contain E. coli at levels of 15 and 23 most probable number (MPN) per gram, Liu said.

The second cheese shipment, imported by Somm Fine Wine Inc., also failed inspection after this type of bacteria was detected in three of five samples, he said.

Under Taiwan's regulations, no more than two out of five samples may contain between 10 and 100 MPN/g of E. coli, while no sample may exceed 100 MPN/g, the TFDA said.

The shipments will be returned or destroyed, and future cheese shipments imported by the two companies will be subject to 100 percent batch-by-batch inspections, Liu said.