9 items found in border and market inspections in a month contain clenbuterol

From March 20 to the end of April, the Food and Drug Administration of the Department of Health conducted a comprehensive inspection on the lean meat stimulant "ractopamine", including batch-by-batch inspection of imported beef at the border and random inspection of 1,000 pieces of beef, pork, duck, goose and other meats on the market. As a result, a batch of frozen boneless beef tenderloin from the United States reported at the border on April 10 was found to contain lean meat stimulant; 8 pieces of commercially available meat were found to contain lean meat stimulant, of which 4 were American beef and 1 was domestic pork. The origin of the other 2 pieces of beef and 1 piece of pork is currently under investigation by the Department of Health.

The frozen boneless sirloin from the United States, with a total weight of 23,592.7 kilograms, reported by Metro Co., Ltd. on April 10 was the first batch of imported beef found to contain clenbuterol since the border implemented batch inspections of beef. (Photo courtesy of Food and Drug Administration)

The Food and Drug Administration pointed out that since 00:00 on March 20, it has started border inspection of imported beef batch by batch. The number of beef reported for inspection has dropped sharply. As of April 26, a total of 205 batches have been accepted for inspection. Currently, the only meat found to contain illegal clenbuterol is the American frozen boneless sirloin with a total weight of 23,592.7 kilograms, which was reported by Metro Corporation on the 10th of last month. The inspection report was released yesterday, and it was found to contain 6.2 ppb of ractopamine. The manufacturer has been required to return or destroy the meat in accordance with regulations.

As for the domestic market sampling, a total of 1,116 commercially available meat products were sampled in the past month, including 521 beef products, 458 pork products, 51 duck products, 47 goose products, 27 chicken products and 12 mutton products, with a pass rate of 99.3%. Ractopamine was detected in 8 items, of which 4 were American beef and 1 was domestic pork. The origins of the other 2 beef and 1 pork are currently under investigation by the local health bureau.

Regarding substandard meat products, the Food and Drug Administration emphasized that it has required sales locations to immediately remove the products from shelves and recall them, and the Health Bureau is responsible for sealing and supervising their destruction. For related businesses and manufacturers, based on violations found during the investigation, in addition to imposing fines in accordance with the Food Sanitation Management Act, the upstream importers of meat will be tracked down to ensure the safety of the meat supply chain.

Kang Zhaozhou, director of the Food and Drug Administration, said that although imported meat rarely contains ractopamine, due to the recent outbreak of mad cow disease in the United States, people have concerns about the safety of eating American beef, so the border inspection measure of each batch is still maintained. In addition, he pointed out that most domestic stores no longer sell American beef. Since there is not such a large amount of American beef in the market, the special inspections will be changed to irregular sampling to continue to safeguard the public.