DISPOSAL: Food products that did not pass are to be destroyed or returned, and their importers would face more stringent inspection standards and frequency
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By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
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A batch of squid imported from Hokkaido, Japan, was found to contain excessive levels of cadmium, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday, as it reported five types of food imports that failed border inspections.
The batch of squid contained 2mg/kg of the heavy metal, FDA Deputy Director-General Lin Chin-fu (林金富) said.
The maximum allowable limit of cadmium detected in cephalopods (not including internal organs) is 1mg/kg, so the 0.29kg of imported squid would be returned or destroyed, Lin said.
Squid imported from Hokkaido, Japan, is pictured after a border inspection in a photograph released yesterday.
Photo courtesy of the Food and Drug Administration
Squid are known to bioaccumulate metals, as they feed on small fish, crustaceans and plankton, he said.
The importer, Gogo Foods Taiwan Co (博多食品), had purchased three batches of squid from Japan this year, and only this batch failed the inspection, he said.
Inspections of Gogo’s food imports would be raised from “regular randomly selected batch inspection” (2 to 10 percent) to “reinforced randomly selected batch inspection” (20 to 50 percent).
A total of 243 batches of squid had been imported from Japan in the past six months, and only two failed border inspection, which is relatively low, so the general inspection rate would not be increased, the FDA said.
Meanwhile, a batch of dried jackfruit and a batch of dried longan sold under the brand name Seed and imported from Thailand by Cowisdom International Investment Ltd (眾智國際投資) were found to contain the bleaching agent sulfur dioxide at 0.94g/kg and 1.4g/kg respectively, exceeding the allowable limit of 0.5 g/kg.
The FDA would also increase the inspection rate for Cowisdom to 20 to 50 percent.
Moreover, a batch of mixed spices from Malaysia was found to contain the pesticide profenofos that exceeded the allowable limits, and a batch of fresh asparagus imported from Vietnam contained the pesticides indoxacarb and tebufenozide, both of which exceeded permissible limits, FDA data showed.
The five imported food products have not entered the local market and would be returned or destroyed, it said.
