The Taichung City Education Bureau emphasized that it will strengthen inspections of school lunches to ensure the quality of lunches. (provided by the city)
Starting from the new school year in Taichung City, public and private primary and secondary schools will implement a free nutritious lunch policy. Today, some parents reported that after checking the school’s food ingredient registration platform, they discovered that the vegetables their children ate were actually imported from China, raising concerns that the lunch would be a food safety breach. The Taichung City Education Bureau pointed out that it went to an inspection today to confirm that the “China” on the food ingredient registration platform was mistakenly inserted by a former employee when logging in. After reviewing the procurement and acceptance records, the origin of the cabbage is South Korea. Since the operator’s registration information is inconsistent with the actual purchase, the school has been asked to deal with it in accordance with the contract.
Recently, it was revealed that some unscrupulous operators in China illegally applied formaldehyde on the roots of Chinese cabbage to preserve its freshness. Many people are worried that the baby cabbage bought at the store is produced in Vietnam, a country suspected of being the "washing place" of Chinese vegetables. They are worried about food safety risks. A parent in Taichung City checked the campus food ingredients login platform and was surprised to find that the cabbage and white radish supplied by the catering manufacturer were often Chinese products, or they were "Vietnamese white radish" with doubtful origin. School lunches are disturbing.
Zhou Yonghong, the chief convener of the Taichung City Council of the Democratic Progressive Party, pointed out that the Education Bureau should quickly find out whether the content reported by parents is true, and should uniformly require schools and catering manufacturers to log in complete information about the source of ingredients, so that parents cannot check the platform without finding complete information. City Councilor Chen Shuhua also emphasized that in addition to free nutritious lunches in schools, efforts should also be made to ensure the safety of ingredients so that students can truly eat nutrition.
The Education Bureau pointed out that today, together with the Food Safety Department and nutritionists, they went to the catering business for inspections and reviewed the purchasing and acceptance records on site. They found that the cabbage was mainly purchased from Taichung Fruit and Vegetable Transportation Co., Ltd., and the origin stated in the acceptance data was South Korea. It was confirmed that the cabbage was planted by mistake when a former employee logged in.
The Education Bureau emphasized that there is currently no data showing that the school’s cabbage served with cabbage has been detected by the competent authorities with formaldehyde or other harmful substances. It will continue to supervise schools and businesses to strengthen procurement, acceptance, and origin verification, giving priority to the use of domestic, local, and traceable ingredients. It will also implement a verification mechanism for registration information and strengthen irregular spot inspections to jointly maintain the quality and food safety of student lunches.
