In order to monitor and provide instructions to ensure the safety of foods, etc., imported into Japan (hereafter referred to as “imported foods”), the government established the Imported Foods Monitoring and Guidance Plan in 2015 (hereinafter, “the plan”). The plan is based on the guidelines for monitoring and providing instructions in food safety (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Notification No. 301, 2003) as per the regulations of Article 23, Paragraph 1 of the Food Sanitation Act (Act No. 233, 1947; hereinafter, “the Act”); public comments were collected and risk communication was conducted. The plan was published in the Official Gazette as an official report according to the regulations of Paragraph 3 of the same article, and the monitoring and instruction for imported foods is being conducted based upon the plan.
 This document presents an outline of the implementation status of the monitoring and instruction for imported foods, conducted in accordance with the plan, for the period from April to September 2015.

Under the Article 4 of the Food Safety Basic Act (Act No.48 of 2003) (that is, food safety shall be ensured by taking appropriate measures at each stage of the domestic and overseas food supply process), the Plan is prepared in order that three stages of food safety measures are taken, namely, in the exporting country, at the time of importation, and at the time of domestic distribution.

Looking at the declarations, inspections and violations made from April through September of 2015 (Table 1), there were 1,134,155 [1,138,913] declarations, and the weight of declared items was approximately 11,416,000 [11,952,000] tons.

Inspections were carried out on 101,922 items (there were inspection orders on 31,764 items, monitoring inspections on 28,539 items, and voluntary inspections on 47,067 items) [99,165 items (inspection orders on 28,153 items, monitoring inspections on 27,719 items, and voluntary inspections on 47,739 items)]. Of these, 431 cases [430 cases] were found to be in violation of the Act, and steps were taken for their reshipment, disposal, etc.

Records of violations categorized by Article (Table 2) show that violations of Article 11 of the Act, which is related to microbiological criteria for food, standards on agricultural chemical residues and standards for the use of additives, were the most common in 312 cases, followed by 105 cases violations of Article 6 which is related to contamination with hazardous or toxic substances such as aflatoxin, 26 cases violations of Article 10 which is related to restrictions on the sale of additives, and 17 cases violations of Article 18 which is related to standards for apparatus or containers and packaging.

Records of monitoring in FY 2015 (Table 3) show that, out of a total of 95,090 planned inspections, 57,455 were actually conducted (That’s an implementation rate of about 60%). Of these, a total of 93 constituted violations of the Food Sanitation Act, resulting in recalls and enhanced monitoring to identify possible future violations (Table 4). Additionally, as a result of enhanced monitoring, inspection for the imported foods which are considered to have a high probability of violating the Act, are strengthened and subject to inspection orders at the time of import (Table 5).

As of September 30, 2015, inspection orders had been applied to 17 items from all exporting countries and 75 items from 29 countries and 1 region. The records of inspection orders (Table 6) show that a total of 47,760 inspection orders were conducted and, of these, steps were taken for their reshipment or disposal, etc. based on 116 violations of the Act.

Based on information from overseas on topics such as recalls of law-violating food products, reshipment was carried out and the import examination was enhanced, for issues such as the contamination of glass pieces from bottled wine in South Africa, detection of Salmonella from natural cheese in France (Table 7).