In September, investigators searched Mikasa Foods and 27 relevant locations after the company drew public flak for diverting the imported rice officially designated as not fit for human consumption due to residual pesticides and fungal contamination for edible use.
The rice was sold as a material for industrial glue by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The firm, which sold the rice to a total of 390 companies, including alcoholic beverage makers and other food makers, was raided on suspicion of breaching the food sanitation law. The firm is suspected of selling 110 tons of the Chinese-produced rice tainted with the pesticide methamidophos from around November last year to a rice wholesaler in Fukuoka Prefecture after buying the rice from the trading houses that imported it. The company is also suspected of disguising 5.4 tons of rice imported from Vietnam and contaminated with the pesticide acetamiprid as edible and selling it to a Kumamoto-based sake brewer in May.
Mikasa Foods bought the Vietnamese-grown rice at 19 yen per kilogram from the ministry, selling it to the maker and other sake brewers at 98 yen and raking in handsome profits from January to May, the investigative sources said.
Fuyuki, speaking at a news conference in September after revelations of the shadowy resale transactions, acknowledged having instructed his employees to perpetrate the deals to make profits. Then farm minister Seiichi Ota subsequently resigned to take the blame for the ministry's inability to detect the diversion of the rice for human consumption.
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