TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has begun carrying out batch-by-batch inspections of strawberries imported from Japan after excessive pesticide residue was detected in 15 batches of strawberries from November to January.

The FDA on Tuesday (Feb. 22) announced a list of eight items that failed its latest import inspections after they were found to contain either excessive amounts of pesticide residue or illegal additives such as preservatives and bleaches, CNA reported. They include cherries imported from Chile, fresh strawberries from Japan, sparkling grape juice from Australia, and strawberry biscuits from Thailand.

Recently there has been a growing number of cases of Japanese strawberries containing excessive amounts of pesticide, the head of the FDA's northern office, Chen Ching-yu (陳慶裕), said. Therefore, the agency on Monday started to inspect Japanese strawberries batch-by-batch.

The FDA pointed out that all the products that have failed to pass border inspections will be shipped back to their countries of origin or destroyed.