TAIPEI (TVBS News) — A shipment of strawberries from Saitama, Japan, has been found to have an excessive amount of pesticide residue, Taiwan's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Tuesday (Jan. 23).
The imported strawberries, weighing 3.5 kilograms in total, exceeded permitted pesticide levels.
Deputy Director of the FDA, Lin Chin-fu, said all imported strawberries from Japan are subject to 100% customs inspection. From July 15, last year, to Jan. 15, 2024, 2.3 metric tons of Japanese strawberries have been found to contain pesticide residue.
Out of 325 batches of Japanese strawberries inspected at the border, 14 batches failed the inspection, yielding a failure rate of 4.31%, Lin said.
From June 1, 2023, until April 30, this year, all shipments of strawberries from Japan to Taiwan were subjected to batch-by-batch inspections. Japanese manufacturers with failed inspections will be suspended from importing for a month.