General Inspection of the Country-of-Origin Labeling on Beef Shows a Passing Rate of 99.6%
2012/11/02
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the Department of Health (DOH), Executive Yuan has put the “Reinforced Inspection for the Mandatory Labeling Program” for the country-of-origin labeling of beef ingredients into practice. By the morning of October 25, a cumulative total of 24,960 places were inspected, with 24,879 passing the inspection, i.e., a passing rate of 99.6%. It shows that the policy has been successfully promoted.
FDA has mobilized local Public Health Bureaus since September 12 for checking and guiding businesses in labeling the country of origin of beef ingredients, particularly in pre-packaged food, bulk food and places where food is served. Among them, 6,425 suppliers of pre-packaged food were inspected and all were found to comply with the regulation.
A cumulative total of 81 businesses were found to have failed to label the country of origin of their beef ingredients properly and were requested to make a rectification by a deadline. 80 of them were found to have complied with the regulation after a second check by the Public Health Bureau and re-inspection will be conducted for the remaining 1 business, so as to ensure that the public is given the correct information.
In order to put the mandatory country-of-origin labeling of beef ingredients for food containing beef or edible parts of cattle into practice, County or City Public Health Bureaus will continue to visit fast-food shops, restaurants, night markets, supermarkets, traditional markets, convenience stores, booth sellers, mega-stores, stores selling Northern and Southern goods, food factories, etc. for inspection on and counseling for the relevant businesses selling beef products (bulk food, pre-packaged food, places where food is served) to see if they have properly labeled their products. In the future, pre-packaged food suppliers, bulk food suppliers and places where food is served that are found to have improperly labeled their products will be punished with a fine between NT$30,000 and NT$150,000 for the violation of Article 17 of the Act Governing Food Sanitation. FDA would like to urge businesses which have not yet labeled the country of origin on their beef products as regulated to do so as soon as possible or they can be subject to penalties.
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