Taiwan Today

Four out of seven local fast food restaurants, including big names like McDonald’s, KFC, and Domino’s Pizza, failed frying oil spot checks in Taipei County June 21. Taipei County’s consumer protection officers announced the spot-check results June 29. The acid value of frying oil at McDonald’s Zhongyang Road branch in Tucheng City reached 23.88 mg KOH/g, almost 12 times higher than the standard 2.0 mg KOH/g. Representatives of McDonald’s, KFC, Domino’s Pizza, Napoli, and PizzaHut were asked to attend a press conference June 29. McDonald’s apologized on the spot, but Wu Cheng-hsueh, a consumer protection officer from the Executive Yuan, said that “McDonald’s still owes consumers in Taiwan an official apology” since many children in Taiwan learn to recognize the letter “M” from the McDonald’s trademark. Chen Kun-jung, director of the Legal Affairs Bureau under the Taipei County Government, said that the acid value of frying oil should not exceed 2.0 mg KOH/g under the Department of Health’s regulations. Yet McDonald’s Jincheng Road and Zhongyang Road branches and KFC’s Jincheng Road branch in Tucheng City, as well as Domino’s Zhongzheng Road branch in Yonghe City, failed to meet the standard. Chen also said that other test results for items like heavy metals, fluorescent agents, and other cancer-causing compounds will be announced July 3. Also during the conference, Lin Jie-liang, professor at Chang Gung University’s College of Medicine, said that frying oil produces substances detrimental to human organs, the liver in particular. Many businesses think that the 2.0 mg KOH/g standard is too hard to meet, but Lin holds it is reasonable. Lin Hsin-yi, McDonald’s senior quality-control manager and Jessica Pan, its deputy public relations manager, said the company was “very sorry” about the high acid value of frying oil at their Zhongyang Road branch. They stressed, however, that McDonald’s has always had a set of quality control measures despite some of their branches’ failure to comply. As the DOH recently established a new standard, they have urgently imported 3M indicator papers. Chen demanded that starting July 1, fast food chain restaurants in Taipei County post their latest frying oil test results every day in a prominent place. Fast food representatives, however, said they have to request instructions from their head offices first, which dismayed Chen. Chen called McDonald’s earlier falsification of oil change records “behavior unbefitting a transnational enterprise, more like that of a backward country.” (TYH-THN)