ILLEGAL ADDITIVES: Managing director Chen Hsing-you and associate director Chen Ching-ju are to serve prison terms, while more than NT$115m was seized

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 24, 2019
By: Chang Wen-chuan and Jake Chung  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a second-circuit verdict that sentenced Taiwan First Co managing director Chen Hsing-you (陳星佑) and associate director Chen Ching-ju (陳鏡如) to two-and-a-half years and two years in prison respectively for breaches of the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法).

Earnings from the firm, primarily through its Taiwan First Fried Chicken (台灣第一家鹽酥雞) subsidiary, totaling NT$115.9 million (US$3.7 million), have been confiscated, the Supreme Court said.

The nation’s top court upheld the earlier ruling, saying that only the proper authorities are allowed to provide or approve food-grade additives, while industrial-grade products are “not for human consumption.”

Chen Hsing-you, in charge of the company’s signature salt-and-pepper mix, in 2007 began using magnesium carbonate to prevent clumping due to moisture, the Supreme Court said in its verdict
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