The farm ministry on Tuesday began checking all uninspected beef submitted by a Nippon Meat Packers Inc. subsidiary, which is at the center of a scandal for mislabeling beef in a bid to receive state buyback subsidies for unsold domestic meat.
The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry searched Nippon Food Inc. warehouses in Tokyo and Osaka and will inspect other sites later this week, ministry officials said.
Subject to the probe are all unopened boxes -- about 100 tons -- out of 140 tons of beef the company applied to have covered by the buyback scheme, which was introduced last fall to help Japan's meat producers hard hit in the wake of the outbreak of mad cow disease in domestic cattle in September.