In the latest scandal to hit Japan's food industry, supermarket operator Tokyu Store Chain said on Tuesday that it had been involved in selling beef intentionally mislabelled as a more expensive variety.
Tokyu Store Chain said 26 packs of meat falsely labelled as Matsuzaka beef were sold at a shop operated within one of its supermarkets by Central Foods, a fully owned subsidiary of Tokyu Department Store, from July 1 to August 5.
Meanwhile, Nippon Meat Packers, at the centre of its own meat mislabelling scandal, announced this week that sales of its ham, sausage and processed food products are likely to fall about 40 per cent in August from a year earlier.
The poor sales spurred investors to continue dumping shares of Nippon Meat, also known as Nippon Ham, which are down by over 45 per cent since the scandal first broke out on Thursday evening.
Nippon Meat shares closed down 5.82 per cent at 777 yen, while the key Nikkei average finished down 0.61 per cent. The shares hit a 16-year low of 741 yen in the morning.
Investors also sent shares of Tokyu Store spiralling lower to close down 12.94 per cent at 296 yen. Tokyu Department Store finished down 10 per cent at 90 yen.
Scandals over mislabelled beef have become commonplace in the Japanese food industry, with each new report of wrongdoing eroding the little trust held by consumers and fuelling public outrage.
Tokyu Store said the mislabelling took place at one outlet in Kawasaki near Tokyo, and did not occur at any of the other meat shops run by Central Foods in 40 other Tokyu Store outlets.
"We are terribly sorry to have caused such a state of affairs, and we will take this situation seriously," Tokyu Store said in a statement. Matsuzaka beef is a premium, high-priced variety considered one of the best in the world. It is made in Kobe in western Japan and known for its soft texture.
Tokyu Store Chain is the second-largest core firm in the Tokyu group, eclipsed in size only by Tokyu Department Store.
Nippon Meat, Japan's biggest sausage and ham maker, said last week that its Osaka-based subsidiary, Nippon Food Kansai, had mixed imported beef with domestic beef before selling it as part of an industry buy-back plan meant for Japanese beef.
The Japan Meat Processors' Association bought the beef as part of a government effort to counter a slowdown in sales of domestic beef and to remove beef that had not been inspected from the market following an outbreak of mad cow disease last September.
Nippon Meat had said last Friday that an internal investigation had also uncovered mislabelling at a second subsidiary, Nippon Food Chushikoku, based in Okayama Prefecture in western Japan.
The Nippon Meat mislabelling scams came to light after a similar scandal earlier this year in which Snow Brand Food Co, Japan's sixth-largest meat packer before it was liquidated, admitted it had mislabelled imported beef.
The mislabelling scam led big retailers such as Ito-Yokado Co, Seiyu, Aeon and Family Mart to pull Nippon Meat products from their shelves. "It is difficult to say with exact certainty, but it appears, at this point in time, that sales (of ham, sausages and processed foods) will fall around 40 per cent in August," a company spokesman said.
The Nippon Meat spokesman said the company did not know when the retailers would agree to begin selling its products again, and declined to comment on whether the meat processor would have to revise its earnings forecast for the year to next March.