cherries

Almost 1.5 tonnes of US cherries have been stopped from entering Taiwanese markets after they failed a pesticide test, the third batch to fail such a test in the past fortnight.

The 1,469kg cherry shipment was found to contain 0.92 parts per million (ppm) of the pesticide fenpropathrin, while the Taiwan Department of Health only permits 0.5ppm.

The Taiwan Food and Drug Administration has decided on a four-fold increase in its checks of US cherry shipments, and has also written to the US to ask them to take steps to prevent this happening again.

Earlier this month,almost six tonnes of US cherrieswere found to contain contain traces of the pesticide malathion, which is not permitted in Taiwan.