Ting Hsin food firm boss charged over tainted cooking oil

The head of a lard supplier in Taiwan was formally charged yesterday with deliberately selling adulterated cooking oil.

The indictment of Wei Ying-chun, one of four brothers who run the Ting Hsin International Group, was delivered by the Taipei District Prosecutors Office. Charges include fraud and forgery.

Wei was already in custody in Chunghua county in the centre of the island on a charge linked to a cooking oil scandal implicating another subsidiary of the group.

It has been accused of using oil meant for animal feed in its products.

Another subsidiary of the firm, Wei Chuan Foods Corp, Taiwan's second-largest food manufacturer, was found to have sold food products made with gutter oil, a potentially harmful mixture of waste oil recycled from restaurant fryers and slaughterhouse byproducts.

Bowing to public pressure, Wei had resigned from his positions as chairman of three of the group's subsidiaries.

Ting Hsin has said it will shut down its oil manufacturing business in Taiwan.

It will also donate NT$3 billion (HK$765 million) to the government or government-designated foundations to help restore the reputation of Taiwan's food industry.

Critics described the move as a token gesture aimed at propping up its business across the strait.

Its oil manufacturing operations in Taiwan generated only US$65 million last year, about 0.08 per cent of the group's revenues. The firm's food business on the mainland generated US$10 billion.

President Ma Ying-jeou, who has declared the contaminated cooking oil scandal a national security issue, said the food industry might lose NT$16 billion following a series of food safety fiascos.

Lard supplier Chang Guann was fined NT$50 million last month for selling a product containing gutter oil as cooking oil. Several firms were also found last year to have illegally added colouring agents to cooking oil, or blended olive oil with cheaper products such as cottonseed oil and sold it as pure olive oil.