020308 Meat Mislabeling Scandal Hits Japan

Tokyo - Japan's largest meat dealer said it repackaged inexpensive beef and pork as top-quality brands for sale to supermarkets, notching the second food-labeling scandal to hit the country in just over a month.

Tokyo-based Starzen Co. sold pork from cheaper white pigs by mislabeling it as that of black pigs, a highly prized grade in Japan, company spokesman Yukihiro Tsukuda said. The practice lasted a year and seven months, ending in December, he said.

The company may have bagged up to 30% more profit by mislabeling, Tsukuda said. But the company is still assessing how much meat was affected.

The Starzen scam comes after Snow Brand Foods Co., Japan's No. 6 meat packer, said last week it will shut down in the wake of a mislabeling scandal that has triggered widespread anxiety about mad cow disease in Japan.

Snow Brand Foods mislabeled foreign beef as domestic to take advantage of a government program that has spent billions of yen (millions of dollars) buying up and disposing of older domestic beef potentially contaminated with mad cow disease.

Meat sales in Japan have plunged since Japan reported Asia's first case of mad cow disease in September. A total of three cows infected with the brain-wasting disease have been confirmed.

Many restaurants have switched to serving only imported meat.

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