Strawberries from five Japanese suppliers are banned from entering Taiwan from Saturday until Feb. 11, after several recent shipments failed to meet pesticide residue criteria at border controls, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced yesterday.
The agency had imposed the one-month ban because 10 out of 216, or 4.63 percent, of Japanese strawberry shipments since November have failed inspections, FDA Deputy Director-General Lin Chin-fu (林金富) told a press briefing.
The 10 shipments were from five suppliers, whose import applications would be suspended for one month, Lin said.
Photo courtesy of the Food and Drug Administration (CNA)
“This is the first time the FDA has imposed such a harsh penalty on Japanese strawberries,” he said.
The FDA will also intensify its review of all Japanese strawberries on April 30 by on-site verification and investigation of samples, he said.
Seven other inspections failed, including chocolate from San Francisco-based See’s Candy Shops Inc and lollipops from Denmark.
The chocolates were rejected because they contained excessive levels of sorbic acid, a food preservative, the FDA said, adding that they were destroyed at the scene.
The company said it would increase inspection fees for the company’s products.
The FDA said the pacifiers were either destroyed on the spot or returned to sender because they contained formaldehyde, which the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies as a Group 1 carcinogen.