020831 Top Bosses Step Down At Nippon Meat

Tokyo - The top two bosses at Japan's leading meat packer stepped down to take responsibility for a beef mislabeling scandal that has raised new concerns about Japanese corporate ethics and food safety.

Yoshinori Okoso, founder and chairman of Nippon Meat Packers, resigned from his post, while company president Hiroji Okoso, the chairman's son, was demoted to senior managing director, according to company spokesman Hideo Noguchi.

Nippon Meat Packers managing director Yoshikiyo Fujii will become president. The office of chairman will be dissolved.

The announcement came after Japan's Agriculture Ministry began investigating the company amid suspicion it abused a government program to buy domestic beef potentially tainted with mad cow disease to get it off the market.

Okoso admitted earlier this month that the company sold the government untainted foreign beef as part of the buyback program in order to clear out "excessive inventories."

Sales of domestic beef have plunged since authorities here reported Asia's first case of mad cow disease in September.

The government has spent billions of yen (millions of U.S. dollars) buying and disposing of local beef potentially contaminated to restore public trust.

Since the scandal surfaced, dozens of department stores and supermarkets in Japan have withdrawn Nippon Meat Packers' products from shelves. Several school districts also have stopped using the company's products.

Since the government implemented the buyback program, several firms have tried to milk it.

Japan's No. 6 meatpacker, Snow Brand Foods Co., admitted abusing the program by passing off imported beef as domestic beef, while meat processing firm Nippon Shokuhin Co. tried to pass off 122 tons of foreign beef tendons. Both companies have since collapsed.

The Japanese outbreak of mad cow disease, a brain wasting illness formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, as well as the government's slow response, has raised questions in Japan about corporate ethics and caused some jitters about food quality.

"Consultations between the industry and administrative authorities are needed and additional regulations should be considered," Noguchi said.

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