Japan Tobacco to cut outsourcing of frozen food production to China
Japan Tobacco Inc will increase its own production of frozen foods while cutting back on outsourcing to China, President Hiroshi Kimura said Tuesday. JT will also expand the scope of its food safety inspections, which focus primarily on the manufacturing process at present, to new supervising procedures including the entire process from material processing to warehouse distribution operations, according to the announcement made by Kimura in the wake of food poisoning cases involving dumplings made in China. Among other actions, the company will increase the frequency of inspections from one or two times per year at present, in addition to inspections conducted without advance notice. JT will also require all suppliers to secure ISO 22000 certificates for food safety management systems from the International Organization for Standardization within the next two years and will require the certification as a prerequisite for production of food products on behalf of JT.