In the wake of food poisoning cases involving "gyoza" dumplings made in China and imported by its subsidiary JT Foods Co., Japan Tobacco Inc. will increase its own production of frozen foods while cutting back on outsourcing to China, President Hiroshi Kimura said Tuesday.

The company will expand the scope of its food safety inspections, which currently focus primarily on the manufacturing process, to new supervisory procedures including the entire process from material processing to warehouse distribution operations, according to Kimura's announcement.

Among other actions, the company will increase the frequency of inspections of the Chinese plants by its own employees, in addition to inspections conducted without advance notice.

Currently, JT workers visit these plants once or twice a year to check up on their safety control.

JT will also require all suppliers to secure ISO 22000 certificates for food safety management systems from the International Organization for Standardization within the next two years and will require the certification as a prerequisite for production of food products on behalf of JT.

Currently, JT's frozen food is produced at 17 factories in China, 11 of which belong to Chinese companies, including Tianyang Food, the producer of the suspect dumplings.