Consumer protectors can do more than name-and-shame

The Consumer Protection Commission (CPC) has recently turned its attention towards instant noodles package designs that generally exaggerate the package content. It is a common practice in Taiwan for instant noodles packaging to show sumptuous bowl of noodles often with shrimps, vegetables or large pieces of meat which are not included.

To avoid being outright misleading, the manufacturers will include the clause “The package picture is for reference only.” Yet for now the cautionary clause is generally printed in much smaller size then the shrimps, vegetables or meat that are displayed so alluringly on the packages.

But not for long as the CPC announced it would stipulate standards for food packaging jointly with other authorities such as the Department of Health (DOH), the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) and the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection (BSMI).

In other cases, Kaohsiung District prosecutors recently found a Taoyuan-based salt wholesaler selling washing salt as eating salt. While washing salt is eatable, it is of lesser quality than regular salt and costs only one third the price of eatable salt.

Police busted a bootlegger in Taipei who made more than 20,000 bottles of rice wine last week. The bootlegger collected empty bottles of the authentic state product, filled them with his own brew and sold them to shops in Kaohsiung and Pingtung for only 10 to 20 percent the wholesale price of authentic alcohol.

Meanwhile at almost the same time, rice fields in Houpi, Tainan, famous for being the focus of the documentary on Taiwanese eco-farming,”Let it be,”were found by the Council of Agriculture (COA) to have been contaminated by a nearby factory and to be containing an excessive amount of the heavy metal chromium, which eaten in large quantity could cause of liver failure, kidney damage and even cancer.

Also in mid-November, a university professor discovered after a long investigation that ducks reared in a Kaohsiung farm contained excessive dioxin, a highly poisonous hydrocarbon that can cause cancer.

Last but not least, even the National Palace Museum in Taipei confirmed Nov. 17 that a brand of oolong tea they were selling contained excessive pesticides.

The efforts of the authorities to protect the health and rights of the people are commendable. In a world of increasingly complicated consumer services, advertisement tactics and supply chains, consumers would be sitting ducks if not for the good work of these officials.

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