A team of five Chinese experts reached Tokyo Sunday to probe
with their Japanese counterparts the alleged contamination of
exported dumplings as a Tokyo company official said the source firm
in Hebei province had not used any pesticide in its products.
The dumplings were exported by Tianyang Food of Shijiazhuang,
capital of Hebei, which Tokyo-based Sojitz Foods Corp quality
control chief Hisao Kobayashi visited Sunday. He gleaned
information at the Shijiazhuang factory before making it clear that
it had never used the pesticide called methamidophos.
Kobayashi said he and another Sojitz Foods official checked
chemical storage records from December 2006 but found no evidence
of any pesticide being used in the factory.
The two countries, though, have agreed to refrain from making
any subjective conclusion before a thorough investigation is over
and views are exchanged in full, Chinese embassy officials in Tokyo
said.
About 300 people in Japan have sought medical treatment,
complaining of vomiting and diarrhea after eating the dumplings.
And one girl is reported to be in a serious condition.
Last week, the Japanese media quoted a company as having said
that frozen meat dumplings exported by Tianyang Food contained
pesticide.
But tests showed the rest of the dumplings from the same batch
of more than 2,000 packages, were safe. All the other products made
by the Hebei company were safe too, said Wang Daning, an official
with the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection
and Quarantine.
Hebei Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau director Cheng
Fang said China banned use of methamidophos in 2004.
"We investigated samples of dumplings that caused medical
problems among some Japanese, as well as the dumplings made around
11 days of that date, that is, from Oct 1 to 20. And no traces of
the pesticide were found," he told a press conference in
Shijiazhuang, on Saturday.
Sojitz Foods, a wholly owned subsidiary of trading house Sojitz
Corp, acts as an intermediary between Tianyang Food and JT Foods
Co, a subsidiary of Japan Tobacco Inc.
Investigators have questioned 30 Tianyang Food workers and
probed the purchasing, manufacturing, storing and transporting
processes of the factory without finding any problem with the
quality of food products made there, he said.
Also yesterday, Japanese police said insecticide had been found
on the surface of six packages of Tianyang dumplings that were made
on the same day as the ones that a family in Takasago, Hyogo
Prefecture, ate and fell sick.
A hole had reportedly been found in one of the six packages. But
the Japanese police refused to speculate on what caused the holes
or how the food had been contaminated.
Tianyang Food manager Di Menglu said at a press conference on
Saturday that the dumplings could not have been contaminated in his
factory because they are packed in sealed containers as soon as
they come off the production lines.
He said that the factory is "shocked" at the incident and
suspended production on Wednesday afternoon. It has recalled all
its products from the market, too.
Ding said he felt sad at the news of Japanese people falling ill
after eating the dumplings, and hoped they recovered early.
(China Daily February 4, 2008)