Old cake



I'm not sure if this is a food safety issue or not, since the 300 year-old company kept the ingredients in the freezer, but anyhow, they lied to consumers about the best-before date of their sweet bean cakes. For 34 years! Dame da yo! (No good at all!)

Sources close to the company said that the products that did not end up on shelves were frozen instead of being disposed of. Later, they were thawed and their packaging was changed, falsely listing the thawing date as the production date, and creating a use-by date several days later. The products were then sent out again.

Mainichi says Mie Prefectural Government officials inspected the quality of the repackaged products, but found that they did not pose any health risks.

Their shop is near Ise Shrine, one of the most holy places in Japan. The Akafuku Co. website, which had many lovely photos and so on, has now been replaced with a single message of apology. You can still find small images of their cakes using Google Image Search.

Comments

Pandabonium said…
you said, "they were thawed and their packaging was changed"

Like politicians?

Let them eat old cake.
4:06 pm, October 19, 2007
Martin J Frid said…
Too sweet and too stale and usually on the shelf for too long. Yup, just like (some) politicians!
2:34 pm, October 20, 2007
vegetablej said…
Yesterday I read that they also collected old unsold packages from stores and re-packaged them as new.

Far too many of these fudging food companies, but usually they have to pay with their pocketbooks, as consumers refuse to buy them.
5:07 pm, October 21, 2007
Martin J Frid said…
Thanks for the additional information, vegetablej. The good thing that we might want to point out is that workers are increasingly willing to act as "whistle blowers". That takes a lot of courage.
6:54 pm, October 21, 2007
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