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.

However, in addition to upholding the standards and identifying producers who cut corners (the cases are still under investigation, businesses and individual involved should be given the benefit of the doubt), authorities could do more by not only acting as a goalkeeper but as rule-makers who can encourage the businesses to behave themselves.

As the above cases have shown, consumer protection is not only the mission of the CPC or Consumers' Foundation. Depending on the product in question it can fall on a bunch of government departments. As a result, consumers sometimes receive confusing information from different authorities.

For example, the prosecutors in Kaohsiung involved in the salt case initially announced that uneatable industrial salt is passed eatable salt, only to be corrected by the tests conducted by the DOH in Kaohsiung later.

Government departments should establish robust channels to discuss and exchange information on investigations on consumer product safety and standards. Setting up an interdepartmental task force on consumer protection that would provide a single outlet for the public to make inquiries and report would be a good step.

On the other hand, naming the troublemaking businesses is only half of the equation. For starters, some busted businesses may simply just lay low for a while, change their name and resort to doing the same old tricks again. In addition to discouraging wrongdoing, the authorities should help make honesty the best business strategy.

The government can increase the public exposure of businesses that are maintaining their standards and providing good quality products and services.

The existing National Standard Certification is simply too official and low key to attract public interest.

Through actions such as presenting awards to good businesses and food producers, the government could create a strong incentive for these honest businesses.