Tokyo: Japanese police today arrested the former executives of a meatpacking firm in one of a series of scares over false food labelling in the country.

Police on the northern island of Hokkaido arrested former president Minoru Tanaka and three other former executives of Meat Hope Co., a  meatpacking company.

Police suspect the four officials were responsible for falsely labelling minced meat containing pork and chicken as 100 per cent beef so as to boost profits.

The firm has allegedly sold at least 360 tonnes of meat with false labels since 1998, news reports said.

Tanaka, 69, whose firm went bankrupt in July, has admitted the allegations, telling reporters, "I want to atone as soon as possible for the crime that I committed."

The arrest came as false labelling scandals spread across the nation, raising concerns about food safety. Japan's famed rice cake maker Akafuku has admitted it put false production date labels for more than 30 years on its mainstay bean-jam sweets, a popular souvenir from Japan's holiest Shinto shrine at Ise.

The 300-year-old confectioner also repackaged two-thirds of its unsold rice cakes until January, contrary to claims it incinerated them.

Fujiya, another scandal-hit confectioner, also recently saw its sales plunge after it admitted making cream puffs with outdated milk, cream and eggs. 

Source : PTI