Confidence in food safety has been shaken in Japan. Consumers have experienced growing unease about the food they eat following such incidents as the outbreak of mad cow disease last year, cases of mislabeled food, use of unauthorized additives, frozen spinach from China that still contained pesticide, and diet tablets from China that have killed people. In order to combat this problem, the government has set up a food safety committee and is hurrying preparations to enact a basic law on food safety. In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries is working to put the interests of consumers first and is promoting a plan to revitalize agriculture. In the private sector as well, efforts are being made to thoroughly control quality and guarantee the safety of food.

Chain of Events
The Asahi Shimbun conducted a national public opinion survey at the end of June on the topic of food safety. A total of 77% of respondents indicated that they were "greatly" or "somewhat" concerned. Behind this concern lies a chain of events that began with the discovery of a dairy cow in Chiba Prefecture that had been infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease. People became hesitant to eat beef, and another four BSE-infected cows have since been discovered.

Between March and June of this year, it was learned that frozen spinach from China sold in supermarkets and other locations contained more than the amount of residual pesticide allowed. Around the same time, it became known that a chemical manufacturer was creating food additives that contained unapproved substances, such as acetaldehyde, and a quick recall of affected products was undertaken.

Creating a Food Safety Committee
Taking the situation into account, in June the government began undertaking measures to restore the people's trust. As one step, the Food Agency, an external organ of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, will be abolished, and a plan was put forth for a new food safety commission under the Cabinet Office. The commission will be composed of several experts on food safety and employ approximately 100 food safety inspectors. Its job will be to keep tabs on whether MAFF, which is responsible for policies relating to the food industry, and the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, which has jurisdiction over sanitation and hygiene, are implementing the appropriate policies with regard to food safety. If problems are discovered, the commission has the authority to issue recommendations. The necessary legislation will be submitted to the Diet in January 2003.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries is creating a plan to revitalize food and agriculture as part of policy reform. Among other things, this plan would introduce in fiscal 2003 (April 2003-March 2004) a "traceability system," something that would allow consumers to know when, where, and how the food they purchase at the supermarket was produced and shipped.

Efforts toward guaranteeing food safety are taking place within the private sector as well. One company that has been praised for its thorough system for maintaining quality is processed-food maker Ishii Foods Corp. (site is Japanese only). Since March 2002 the company has posted all of the information pertaining to its products on its website, including ingredients and the area and process of production. The company says that it does not use any additives. In February 2002 supermarket chain Maruetsu (site is Japanese only) began selling cultured fish that were produced without the use of antibiotics at all 193 of its locations in the Tokyo area. The company releases such information as the environment in which the fish were harvested and the name of the producer.

Other supermarkets have installed computers that display similar information on vegetables, such as where they were produced, which company grew them, and how they were shipped. Using these computers, which have been placed in the vegetable aisle, shoppers can also confirm when the vegetables were harvested and the date they were packed. Efforts like this are quickly gaining momentum across Japan.