Japan: wholesalers allegedly mislabelled 'organic' fruit

Two fruit and vegetable wholesalers distributed fruit falsely marked as organic, even though it was sprayed with pesticide, according to inspection reports released by the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry on Thursday.

Wholesalers are only allowed to put organic Japanese Agricultural Standards marks on fruit and vegetables that are grown without using chemical fertilizers and agricultural chemicals for a certain period of time. The ministry regards the case as a violation of JAS regulations and will revoke the two wholesalers' certificates to use the JAS organic marks.

According to the ministry, between April 2003 and August 2004, Yu Ai, based in Misato, Saitama Prefecture, labeled 900,000 lemons with the organic JAS marks and put them on the market.

Yokohama-based Takanaga did the same with 250,000 oranges, lemons and grapefruits, shipping them between June 2003 and September 2004, it said.

Ministry officials inspected the fruit at shops and detected minute amounts of pesticide. On-the-spot inspections by the ministry at the companies' facilities turned up similar results.

The two firms hold JAS certificates to subdivide and label organic produce they buy from importers before shipping it.

The ministry said the produce on which pesticide was found was safe to eat.

Source