Taiwanese firm at centre of ‘gutter oil’ scandal ordered to pull products

Taiwan has ordered the cooking oil supplier at the centre of a snowballing food scandal to pull all of its "Chuan Tung" lard oil products from shop shelves, even if they passed food safety tests.

The order followed reports that edible oil firm Chang Guann had blended "gutter oil" - illegally produced oil usually made from recycled kitchen waste - with fresh lard oil to produce 782 tonnes of Chuan Tung brand oil.

The scandal has rocked the food industry, with revelations that the oil was sold to more than 1,000 food manufacturers, bakeries, restaurants and night markets and used in a huge range of products, from mooncakes and dumplings to instant noodles, crackers and buns.

The scare has spread to Hong Kong, where Maxim's Group has admitted using Chang Guann oil to make 9,000 pineapple buns a day for the past three years. Yesterday, dumpling franchise Bafang Yunji said it had stopped selling curry dumplings at its 54 stores in Hong Kong because the curry paste supplier in Taiwan sourced its oil from Chang Guann.

Dr Philip Ho Yuk-yin, the Centre for Food Safety's consultant of community medicine, said the centre had phoned more than 100 businesses and sent emails to 10,000 or so others to verify whether they had used the oil. Only "dozens" returned calls and none replied to emails.

Hop Hing Oil Procurement said yesterday it had imported oil from Chang Guann. But it added that the oil was not the same type as the suspected gutter oil. The oil was supplied for bakery products and dim sum and all had been recalled.