Japan: Tests suggest gyoza contaminated in China (toxic gyoza update)

Following a police examination of packs of six frozen gyoza returned from a shop in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, police are increasingly of the opinion that the Chinese-made frozen gyoza dumplings were contaminated with a pesticide, methamidophos, in China, according to sources.

Meanwhile, Japan Tobacco Inc., the parent company of Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo-based JT Foods Co., which imported the products, spoke Monday about the operations at the Tianyang Food Processing factory in Hebei Province, China.

"Using a process of elimination we came to the natural conclusion the products were contaminated with the chemical during packaging," a senior Hyogo prefectural police officer said after the police examination into the six returned packs were completed. He said it supported his belief the products were contaminated at the factory in China.

Police did not detect pesticide inside five of the returned six packages of Chuka de Gochiso Hitokuchi Gyoza (delicious Chinese-style bite-sized gyoza), but found the chemical in the dough of the gyoza in one of the packages. However, the gyoza filling in that package did not contain the chemical.

Another police officer said, "[The finding] strengthened our belief that the product was contaminated during the packaging of the products rather than the dumpling production process."

In the two cases in Takasago, Hyogo Prefecture, and Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, respectively, police did not detect the chemical on the outside of the gyoza packages.

In Chiba, the prefectural police found no holes in the packaging. The investigators filled the packages with distilled water to check them for holes.

"We have no choice but to conclude that the packages became tainted with pesticide before they were sealed during the production process," a senior prefectural police officer said.

In the Takasago case, the package had a hole, measuring 1 millimeter by 3 millimeters, leaving open the possibility that the hole was made on purpose by something such as a syringe.

In the first production stage, conducted on the second floor of a factory building in China, a group of eight to 20 employees chop up ingredients such as pork and vegetables, while the dough is made by another group of between 12 and 18 employees.

The ingredients are then wrapped in rolled-out dough by hand by many teams of four people. Dumplings are then cooked and cooled.

A group of 30 to 50 employees freeze and pack the dumplings before packing them in boxes. Finally, the dumplings, in cardboard boxes, are stored in a freezer. Each operation is conducted by no fewer than four employees during the whole process, according to JT.

The whole process involves more than 330 people, and, as a source close to JT said: "In addition, employees assigned to inspect the operation have access to all parts of the factory. Under such circumstances, how could someone put a chemical inside gyoza packs?"

The package maker resolutely denied it was possible that the frozen gyoza could have been tainted with the chemical before the bagging operation began.

"It's unthinkable. There have been no reported cases of our packaging being punctured during transportation," said the official of Taito Ward, Tokyo-based Totai Co., which asked its subsidiary in Jiangsu Province, China, to produce the packaging for the gyoza products.

To make it easier for consumers to find and understand the consume-by date, origin and other information relating to food products, the government plans to enact a food-labeling law that will unify labeling regulations currently set out in the Food Sanitation Law and other related legislation, sources said.

In light of recent food mislabeling scandals, the envisioned law would require makers to combine best-by and consume-by dates, tighten controls on the labeling of places of origin and confiscate profits earned from makers guilty of mislabeling, the sources said.

The government likely will submit a bill to establish the law to the next extraordinary Diet session.

Five laws currently regulate food labeling--the Food Sanitation Law, the Japan Agricultural Standards Law, the Unfair Competition Prevention Law, the Law for the Prevention of Unreasonable Premiums and Misrepresentation concerning Products and Services, and the Measurement Law.

New pesticide type found in gyoza

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The Japanese Consumers’ Co-operative Union announced Tuesday that another organic phosphorus pesticide, dichlorvos, was detected in a package of Co-op Tezukuri Gyoza (Co-op handmade gyoza) sold at an outlet in Fukushima Prefecture in November.

The concentration of dichlorvos detected in the gyoza dough was 110 parts per million, substantially exceeding pesticide residue standards set by the Japanese government.

The gyoza was made by Tianyang Food Processing in China’s Hebei Province, which produced gyoza found contaminated with the pesticide methamidophos and sold in Hyogo and Chiba prefectures.

According to the union, a co-op member who bought the product at a Co-op shop in Kitakata in the prefecture on Nov. 10 complained it had a strong, oil-like smell. It was produced on June 3, a different date from those found contaminated with methamidophos.

All of the products in question were recalled from the store’s shelves after the complaint was filed.

After the gyoza poisoning scandal surfaced, the union on Monday checked the package of gyoza it had kept as an item that had been the subject of a complaint. The dichlorvos reading was far higher in the dough than in the filling, where it was present at a concentration of 0.42 ppm.

Dichlorvos, which is used as insecticide worldwide, was registered as an agricultural chemical in Japan in 1957. If it is inhaled or comes into contact with skin, it can cause nerve-related disorders.

After the complaint was made last year, the union asked JT Foods Co., which imported the products, to conduct tests for chemicals. But the test at that time detected toluene, xylene and benzene—not dichlorvos.

The union also said it received a report from its outlet in Sendai that a co-op member complained on Oct. 31 that the same product made on June 3 had a chemical-like taste.

The union subsequently asked JT Foods to check the product. Although it said a strong odor was detected from the package, not the dumplings, JT Foods said it could not determine the cause of the abnormality even after investigations were conducted at Tianyang Food Processing and the packaging maker.

(Feb. 6, 2008)

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