Farm ministry hid 90% of food mislabeling cases

protect the businesses, not the consumer

Are you afraid that you may be buying food products that have been intentionally mislabeled? Don’t worry, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry is hard at work making sure you never find out:

The farm ministry uncovered 879 cases of mislabeled food products last year but only disclosed 110 of them in order to protect the companies responsible, according to documents obtained from the ministry Saturday.

[...]

A ministry official said it decided not to announce all of the cases because it might deliver “a big social blow” to firms that got caught up in mislabeling through simple negligence or temporary law-infringement cases. It therefore decided only to announce cases it considered “malicious” or requiring orders to take corrective measures.

Some of the cases involved selling Chinese imports as “made in Japan” food, deceptive packages that described old food as “newly harvested,” and improper use of the term “organic.”

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level3

“temporary law-infringement cases”?

Don’t most lawbreaking activities that are exposed and stopped become retroactively “temporary” by definition? Can get a reduced sentence if I rob 3 convenience stores, but claim it was only a “temporary” burst of criminal activity?

Probably if all cases were exposed, nobody would trust any “Made in Japan So It’s Perfectly Safe” or “We Say It’s Organic, So It’s Worth Double the Price” labels anymore, which would erode the demand for high-priced domestic-produced foods, which would make the farmers (with their subsidies and price-controls and political influence) unhappy.
I’d wager polling data shows that many people are already suspicious of such labels, so some bureaucrat decided to reduce the announcements to a trickle.

http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

…and you’d be right to suspect Japanese are suspicious of the labels. About two in five have some degree of mistrust, according to the linked survey.

One thing I always wish there was in Japan was a more active consumer voice in the media.

http://www.zdwonline.de Haf

Consumer with a voice? Haha, that’s funny! The sole purpose of a consumer is to consume everything that you place in front of him, and nothing also. And Japanese consumers mastered this.

Philip

I knew it!
Though, it doesn’t affect me much–I always buy the cheapest veggies.
RMilner

I appreciate that a company which deliberately falsified sell-by dates should not be classed with a company which was the victim of a scam by another company.

Is it impossible for MAFF to release information that would make this difference clear?

The danger to the consumer is the same whatever the source of the tainted food.

Farm ministry hid 90% of food mislabeling cases

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