Uni-President said in a statement yesterday that it bought 5.57 tonnes of cooking oil in June from Ting Hsin International Group, a major lard supplier that imported low-quality oil from a Vietnamese supplier. The admission came a day after Taiwanese prosecutors said a Vietnamese supplier had passed off oil intended for animal feed as fit for human consumption.
Ting Hsin imported 18 batches of the oil in June and July, according to the island's Food and Drug Administration.
Wei Ying-chun, head of a Ting Hsin food firm, was charged last week with deliberately selling adulterated cooking oil.
Another subsidiary of the group, Wei Chuan Foods Corp, Taiwan's second-largest food manufacturer, was found to have sold food products made with "gutter oil", a potentially harmful mixture of waste oil recycled from restaurant fryers and slaughterhouse byproducts.
Wei has also resigned from his positions as chairman of three of the group's subsidiaries.
Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou has declared the scandal a national-security issue and said the food industry could lose NT$16 billion (HK$4 billion).
Lard supplier Chang Guann was fined NT$50 million last month for selling a product containing gutter oil as cooking oil.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: 7-Eleven food pulled on tainted oil fear
