Snow Brand Food Co. acknowledged Tuesday that two of its Kanto-based meat units also misstated imported beef as domestic meat in early November in an attempt to reduce inventories and win government subsidies related to the outbreak of mad cow disease in mid-September.

The fresh incidents were revealed by President Shozo Yoshida during a news conference at Snow Brand Food's headquarters in Tokyo.

"It was regrettable that a food processing company like ours betrayed the public's trust with this series of incidents," Yoshida said.

Yoshida and Executive Director Hiromi Sakurada announced they would resign to take responsibility for the scandals. Yoshida was quickly replaced by Koshiro Iwase, a board member.

Yoshida also said the firm will completely withdraw from the meat business.

An in-house probe revealed that several employees of Snow Brand Food's meat sales and procurement section cut 12.6 tons of beef from the United States and Australia into pieces and repackaged them as domestic beef at a meat processing firm in Hokkaido in early November, said Osamu Kamo, a lawyer who headed the investigation team.

Snow Brand's Kanto Meat Center in Kasukabe, Saitama Prefecture, performed similar butchery on 3.5 tons of U.S. beef at a firm in Chiba Prefecture in early November, the lawyer said.

A total of about 10 Snow Brand Food workers were involved in the two cases, Kamo said.

He said the team did not find any evidence that Snow Brand Food systematically executed the deceptions and that managers at the two units apparently made the decision to disguise the meat on their own.

However, the investigation also suggested that the Kansai Meat Center might have been misstating imported beef and pork as domestic meat even before the mad cow debacle broke in September.

The team was comprised of five lawyers and accountants, and 12 Snow Brand Food employees. It interviewed 16 executives and 22 employees Jan. 24 to 27, Kamo said.

Yoshida, who joined the company in June as the president from its parent company, Snow Brand Milk Products Co., speculated that the reason the company failed to monitor activities in its meat business sections was because they needed highly specific expertise on purchasing and selling meat.

With its withdrawal from the meat business, four meat centers will be closed in February and about 80 workers there will be transferred to other operations, Yoshida said.