On Jan. 20, 2015, Taiwan FDA released an announcement to clarify the limitation on the content of heavy metal chromium and trans-fatty acid in vegetable oil.
The heavy metals found in foods are primarily external environmental contaminants rather than being added to foods and as such there has been little in the way of regulating heavy metal contamination in Taiwan. In the past there was also no relevant standard for the use of chromium in vegetable oil in Taiwan as well as other developed countries including the USA, EU, Australia and New Zealand. Chromium can be divided into trivalent chromium and hexavalent chromium, the former of which is the trace element required by human body, while the latter has been implicated in the etiology of some cancers. According to the new regulation the form of chromium as well as whether the detected content of chromium is consistent with the natural background value should be established. The average content of total chromium is 0.02-0.52ppm according to the investigation on the background value of all varieties of foods by United States Department of Health and Human Services.
The labeling of trans-fatty acid content for prepackaged foods has been mandatory in Taiwan since 2008. On April 15, 2014, TFDA announced it was to revise the rule allowing products with no trans fats to use zero in the nutritional information and will instead require labels to bear the disclaimer “the content of total fat as expressed in 100g/ml contains no more than 1.0g trans fat” or “the content of trans-fatty acid for every 100g/ml of food contains no more than 0.3g”. This announcement will formally be implemented from July 1, 2015.
We provide full-scale global food market entry services (including product registration, ingredient review, regulatory consultation, customized training, market research, branding strategy). Please contact us to discuss how we can help you by 
