Japan: frozen food poisoned with neurotoxic pesticide
For several months now, frozen food products containing malathion, a neurotoxic insecticide, have been circulating in Japan. Nearly 1 consumers have reported being sick after ingesting it. However, the incriminated companies were slow to react.
The Japanese Minister of Consumption, Masako Mori, is angry: "Without report from you, the authorities cannot act", she lectured at the beginning of January Yutaka Tanabe, boss of the manufacturer of frozen meals Aqlifoods stuck in a scandal of poisoned products.
A few days earlier, on December 29, Aqlifoods had urgently summoned the press to launch a massive recall covering some fifty references of pizzas, croquettes and other preparations. Reason: a high concentration of malathion, a neurotoxic insecticide, had been discovered in several products coming out of the same Aqlifoods factory in Gunma, northeast of Tokyo. The group had known about it for two days, but wanted to conduct more extensive testing before warning the general public.
A large-scale scandal
Aqlifoods had received as early as November 13 a first alert from a customer who complained of a "smell of petroleum or used oil" in pizzas. Nine other similar claims were then registered between November 15 and December 3. It was from this moment that the company, an entity of the Maruha Nichiro Holdings group, began to take the matter seriously and to carry out an investigation with analyzes entrusted to outside laboratories. However, it took over a month between the first complaint and the analysis of the problem and before the general public was made aware. During this time, several people consumed contaminated products without knowing it, fell ill and only understood after the fact the reason for their discomfort. According to data compiled by Japanese media, as of January 8, more than 1 consumers have admitted to having been made sick by ingesting frozen foods. Some have even been hospitalized, including a 700 month old baby.
More than 6,4 million products from around fifty different references were recalled, but as of January 7, only 1,82 million (28%) had been recovered, including 1,74 million in the distribution channels and only 80 101 from consumers. This means there are still significant amounts of unsuitable food left in the freezers of homeowners who still have not responded and are at risk of eating these dishes despite media coverage and full pages of warning published in the press. Aqlifoods received some 720 calls from concerned consumers between December 000 and January 29 inclusive.
Pesticide content 2,5 million times higher than the legal limit
Many questions remain unanswered for the moment. How is it that a pesticide content up to 2,5 million times greater than the legal limit could have been found in products which were certainly manufactured in the same factory but of various kinds and on different lines? How were they able to go through all the stages of the production process without anyone realizing it? An investigation by the police has been opened to determine the causes of this food poisoning, but a deliberate introduction of malathion during manufacture is already suspected. However, according to workers interviewed by the Japanese media, searches are taking place at the entrance and exit of the factory and many cameras are installed inside, which makes it a priori difficult to transport in the pesticide bottle production site.
This case is all the more shocking for the Japanese as they have a priori rather confidence in the hygiene measures taken in their country with regard to food, extremely severe standards in general, too much judge even foreign industrialists subjected to the same rules when exporting to the archipelago. The Japanese also buy as much as possible products prepared and packaged in Japan. This business is very bad for the frozen food industry as a whole and one can be sure that supermarket freezers are not going to be very busy in the coming weeks.
A lack of responsiveness of companies and the State
In addition, Japanese companies, when they discover a problem, are often slow to react and then want to be 100% sure of the facts before communicating, which is the very negation of the precautionary principle that should apply in this genre. of cases. This attitude, which is not so much casualness as an attempt to avoid scandal (even if it means making it even more serious) does not only concern the food sector. Recently, the Kanebo cosmetics company similarly had to recall all of its creams and lotions for whitening the skin, after complaints of the random appearance of discolored spots on the skin. It was months before Kanebo admitted the facts and acted. We also remember the Mitsubishi Motors affair ten years ago. The automaker had not recalled its vehicles despite repeatedly reported anomalies until accidents occurred.
The Japanese authorities are not always free from reproaches either: it is not for example they who had seen fit to grant the label "good for health" to cooking oils offered by the Kao group, before the latter did not. decides to remove everything from the shelves after finding that one of the ingredients could be carcinogenic.
Karyn Nishimura, in Tokyo
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