Japan’s food security “, according to the evidence” – Japanese food, food safety – esp

International Herald Tribune Qian Zheng, Tokyo supermarket, from the bottom of vegetables, fruit and meat marked with the weight, origin, and shelf-life is common, while in Japan, consumers can also be found on their computers or mobile phones ” life experience “or even the producer of the photos for more information.

Agricultural products with a “ID”

Ito-Yokado in Tokyo Oi in the basement of town food supermarket outlets, the reporters found in fresh food sales area of this “can see the face of the food.” Readily grabbed a bag of tomatoes and found the upper left corner of bag tag has a 10-digit ID number, write a few lines below, “Yama-gun Fukushima Inawashiro areas, stone Tianxuan Chong tomato,” lower right corner of the label has a square two-dimensional QR code (two-dimensional space of this bar code bar code can store more information than the average).

Curiosity prompted journalists took out a mobile device aligned open reading QR codes, mobile phone appears on the screen line link information. Press the Enter key, you can see Ishida couple in their own home greenhouses in the photo. The text description below including the cultivation of tomato varieties, brief cultivation methods, characteristics of information goods, raw materials are recommended to use tomato dishes in the cooking method.

Food supermarket in this, the reporter found common vegetables and fruits, such as green peppers, spinach, eggplant, cucumber, yam, sweet potato, pear and so on at least one brand to provide producers with detailed information on this label.

“To see the face of the meat,” to tell consumers the information richer.

Black hair Japanese cattle, for example, the first is to look and hectogram meat contains unsaturated fatty acids, amino acids and other nutrients for the content and Holstein cows were compared. Specific to the various farms in the black hair Japanese cattle, the information is not only the producer’s name, address, photo, including cattle feed used during feeding, medicines, medication purpose of slaughtering cattle and processing beef slaughterhouse and meat factory name, address, telephone. Additional documents include a certificate of pedigree cattle, breeding certificates, and quarantine certificates.

“See” people to Eat

Ito-Yokado Corporation public relations staff told Itakura, “International Herald Tribune,” Ito-Yokado began from May 2002 sales “could see the face of the food.” Now the company’s 180 stores selling food such as fresh food from the country origin of 270 producers in 2600.

Itakura said, “can see the face of food” is only limited to Japanese-made agricultural products and aquatic products, open the photos and other information producers is to allow consumers to buy rest assured Eat.

, However, “can see the face of food” prices are not cheap. Also produced in Hokkaido potatoes, potatoes, a common bulk price 19 yen, while the bag 4 “can see the face of the potato” price of 199 yen.

All for food safety Itakura said that Japanese consumers on the requirements of almost demanding food safety, consumers “can see the face of the food” as is food security.

Decades of experience in Japan also caused the accumulation of a set of effective public food safety management system. As early as 1947, Japan formulated the “Food Sanitation Law”, has the “Food Sanitation Law” was amended 10 times. According to the 2006 revised “Food Sanitation Law”, the Japanese began on Pesticide Residues in Foods “positive list system” will be set residue limits for 288 kinds of objects from the original to 799 kinds, and must be on a regular basis for all Residues of pesticides and animal medicines for sampling.

Japan also in 2003 introduced the “Food Safety Basic Law,” and added in the Cabinet Office Food Safety Commission for matters concerning food safety management, and make a scientific assessment of food safety. In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture set up a “Food Safety Crisis Management Group”, set up internal communication system, is responsible for the Emergent major food safety problems.

Order for consumer confidence, the Japanese parties also established a record management system of agricultural production require the production, circulation and other departments Tag , Documented the process of production and circulation of various data. “Can see the face of food” and this request is similar to the practice.