The farm ministry on Monday said that it would inspect all of the roughly 140 tons of beef that Nippon Food Inc. asked the government to purchase after a beef-mislabeling scandal came to light earlier this year.
The officials added that the ministry's order for Nippon Meat Packers Inc. and its units to suspend their beef business would remain in place until all boxes of meat bought from the subsidiary under the government's buyback program are checked.
Later in the day, Nippon Meat, better known as Nippon Ham, announced that its founder and chairman, Yoshinori Okoso, and vice chairmen Shigeo Suzuki and Teruchika Okoso would resign from their posts and leave the company to take responsibility for the fiasco.