日本冷凍食品有農薬需要回收

Last week the Yomiuri News on-line reported the following:

たに４件から農薬、最高値は基準の１５０万倍

　

食品大手「マルハニチロホールディングス」（東京都）の子会社「アクリフーズ」群馬工場（群馬県大泉町）で製造された冷凍食品に農薬マラチオンが混入していた問題で、同社が２９日までに苦情を受け、回収して調べていた商品２０件のうち、新たに４件から農薬が検出され、混入が確認された商品は計９件となった。

　９件の製造日は１０月４日～１１月５日。東京、神奈川、静岡、愛知、大阪、福岡の少なくとも６都府県の消費者から回収されていた。

　群馬県は３０日、食品衛生法に基づき工場を立ち入り調査したが、生産ラインが独立していることなどから、「原材料に付着していたり、通常の製造工程の中で混じったりした可能性は低い。故意の混入も否定できない」との見解を示した。苦情のあった商品は、群馬県外に３か所ある同工場の製品保管倉庫すべてから出荷されていた。

　群馬県警は同日、アクリフーズ社員への事情聴取を始めた。同社によると、商品から検出されたマラチオンの最高値は、国の基準値０・０１ｐｐｍの１５０万倍にあたる１万５０００ｐｐｍだった。

（2013年12月30日23時30分  読売新聞）

(試譯文)

On the problem that agricultural pesticide malathion was mixed with the frozen food manufactured by the "AQLI Foods" at the Gumma factory (Oizumi-cho, Gumma), being the subsidiary of a major food company the "Maruha Nichiro Holdings" (Tokyo), among the 20 products which the company had retrieved and investigated up to the 29th after receiving complaints, four products were newly detected with agricultural chemicals; the total number of cases that the product had confirmed mixing became nine.

The date of manufacturing of the nine cases was from October 4 to November 5. It was collected from the consumers from at least 6 prefectures of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Aichi, Osaka, and Fukuoka.

On the 30th based on the Food Sanitation Law etc. Gumma Prefecture officials entered and investigated the factory to check that the factory line had been independent etc. It was shown that "a possibility of having the chemical adhered to the raw materials, or having been mixed during the usual manufacturing process is low. The view that the mixing is on purpose could not be ruled out, either". All the goods with complaints were shipped from this factory’s product storage warehouses located at three places outside the Gumma prefecture.

The Gumma Prefecture Police began its investigation with the AQLI Foods employee on the same day. According to the company, the highest value of malathion detected from goods was 15,000 ppm, which was 1,500,000 times of 0.01 ppm, being the safe standard of the country.

(23:30 on December 30, 2013    Yomiuri Shimbun)

Probably this incident could provide interesting materials for writing a detective story. I am interested to know when and how the Japanese police would crack this case.