Taipei: Two shipments of fresh melons imported from Japan were recently intercepted at the border after testing positive for excessive pesticide residues, the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) said Tuesday.
According to Focus Taiwan, the melons in the two shipments were found to contain 0.02 parts per million (ppm) and 0.04 ppm of tetraniliprole, respectively, exceeding the 0.01 ppm limit for the pesticide. A total of 332 kilograms of melons were ordered returned or destroyed.
Liu Fang-ming, director of the TFDA's Northern Taiwan Management Center, noted that the two shipments were imported by the same company, Chuan Yong Fruit Co., which has had three shipments fail inspection in the past six months. Due to this record, future melon imports by the New Taipei-based company will be subjected to 100 percent batch-by-batch inspections. Meanwhile, the border inspection sampling rate for Japanese melons, in general, will remain at 20-50 percent through September 17.
The TFDA also announced on Tuesday several other products that recently failed safety inspections, including frozen peeled shrimp from Vietnam, tamarind sauce from Thailand, and nemacystus, a type of algae, from Japan. The nemacystus, imported by Yanran International Co., was found to contain 4.2 milligrams per kilogram of inorganic arsenic, surpassing the legal limit of 1 mg per kg for algae under Taiwan's Sanitation Standards for Contaminants and Toxins in Foods.
In response to these findings, the 3 kg shipment of nemacystus was ordered to be returned or destroyed. The TFDA stated that Yanran International Co. will now face stricter border inspections, with 20-50 percent of its shipments to be inspected. Inorganic arsenic, identified in the algae, is a toxic heavy metal that can lead to various health issues.