Firm charged with falsely labeling eggs from Brazil

NON-COMPLIANCE: Even after regulators told the Fu Shang Sheng Egg Co to correct the information, it continued listing the eggs as coming from Taiwan

New Taipei City prosecutors on Monday indicted the owner and two employees of a company in Sinjhuang District (新莊) for earning more than NT$520,000 in profit by selling imported Brazilian eggs they had falsely been labeled as products of Taiwan.

The company, Fu Shang Sheng Egg Co (福商勝蛋品), was one of several firms commissioned to process fresh eggs imported by the National Animal Industry Foundation into liquid eggs and sell them to retailers during a nationwide egg shortage that began in 2022, the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office said.

In August last year, the company was found to have used imported Brazilian eggs to produce the liquid eggs that it falsely labeled as products of Taiwan, the indictment said.

Even after regulators ordered the company to correct the information, it continued labeling the eggs’ country of origin as Taiwan, ultimately making NT$520,000 in illicit profits, the indictment said.

Following an investigation, the prosecutors’ office charged the company’s owner, surnamed Chang (張), as well as two assistant managers, surnamed Chang and Lu (呂), with making false entries on official documents and falsely labeling a product’s country of origin.

The case stems from a widely criticized program the government used to import more than 145 million eggs from a handful of countries amid a domestic shortage from March to July last year.

In addition to reports of the imported eggs being mislabeled as products of Taiwan, 54 million of the eggs — 37.18 percent of the total — expired before reaching the market and had to be destroyed.