Bakery investigated for false advertising

Local authorities are investigating a popular bakery chain that was found in Taiwan to have used artificial flavoring in baked goods it advertised as all-natural, the Shanghai Administration for Industry and Commerce said Monday.

Administration officials have visited one of Top Pot Bakery's two locations in the city and have taken away advertising materials, said an administration press officer surnamed Zhang. "We need to investigate further to see whether the two shops in Shanghai were involved in false advertising," Zhang told the Global Times.

The administration is looking for evidence that the bakery chain used misleading language to advertise its products as its brand sign indicated that the baked goods contained natural yeast, Zhang said.

The Taiwan-based bakery chain has gained popularity in Shanghai thanks in part to its well-known spokesperson, Taiwanese talk show host Dee Hsu.

Earlier this month, Taiwan's health authorities temporarily shut down the bakery after they found nine kinds of artificial flavoring in its products, even though the chain prominently marketed its products as free of artificial additives, according to a report in the Oriental Morning Post Monday. The bakery chain was closed from August 24 to August 27 in Taiwan and fined NT$180,000 ($6,012).

"Our bakery chef did use a small amount of artificial flavoring in several products to make our baked goods taste better, but we completely changed our recipes and ingredients on August 24," said Chen Juan, the bakery's operations director. "The ones we use now are all-natural."

The two shops in Shanghai, which opened in March and July, operate independently and all of their ingredients have passed local food safety and quality tests, said Zheng Yaozhong, who's in charge of the company's operations in Shanghai.

None of the products in the bakery had labels, so customers couldn't know what ingredients they contained.