International Journal of Advanced Research and Development

Authors
Lin Li-Yun, Ling-Hua Hsieh, Anchor Chen, Yeh Chen, Chi-Huang Chang, Robert Y Peng

Abstract
As a rule, the Tofu manufactories are apt to be polluted and contaminated with a huge population of microbes, which in turn may contaminate the product Tofu and related product. In order to extend the shelf life of Tofus, some illegal prohibited preservative had been abused in Tofus. During the year 2006 to 2008, the illegal cases of Tofu products in Taiwan reached 233 cases. The illegally used preservatives involved hydrogen peroxide, salicylic acid, and dehydroacetic acid. In 2010 we organized a food safety team under the ‘Post-Market Training and Supervising Project’ (PTSP) and executed the Good Hygienic Practice (GHP). Before the finishing of GHP training, among the products examined, a 33.3% to 66.6 % of the products were highly abused with salicylic acid and dehydroacetic acid during the year 2010-2014. Others (33.3% of the products) were adulterated with overdose of p-hydrxybenzoate. The absolute number of manufacturers that had been abusing the use of preservatives in fact was substantially reduced from 233 cases before GHP training (during 2006 to 2008) to merely 16 cases after GHP training (during the year 2010 to 2014) implicating the effectiveness of the GHP training. At the same time, the sanitation ranks of the environment in situ the Tofu manufacturing sites and the Tofu products were greatly improved, most of the product Tofus showed a sanitation rank of log cfu/g as low as 1-2.