萬國法律事務所

Due to a series of incidents in late 2013 involving food safety related to foundry mixtures of cooking oils, the public and the Legislative Yuan called for the Industrial Development Bureau of the Ministry of
Economic Affairs (“IDB”) to conduct a review of Taiwan’s Good Manufacturing Practice (“GMP”) mechanism.

The primary principles of the GMP mechanism reform as deliberated and determined by the IDB include, the issuance of certification only when all of a provider’s products of identical type obtain certification;
implementation of source/ingredients management/control; reinforcement of tracking management, and meeting international standards.

The new mechanism took effect in April 2014 and set out a cushion period until 31 March 2015 for those existing certified providers. However, due to yet another food scandal involving the adulteration of
cooking oil with recycled waste oil and animal feed oil in September 2014, the credibility of Taiwan’s GMP certification was seriously harmed.

In order to respond to this most recent crisis, the IDB urgently released a news letter notifying manufacturers of the accelerated expiration of the cushion period to 1 January 2015. At that time,
existing certified providers will lose their GMP qualifications if any of their products of identical type do not pass the relevant certification examination.