Japan halts import from U.S./Dodge City meat plant on missing papers for beef

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Japan halts import from U.S. meat plant on missing papers for beef shipment

The Associated Press Published: April 5, 2007

TOKYO: Japan ordered imports halted from a major U.S. meat plant Friday after a beef shipment arrived without proper papers, the third American meatpacker that's had some exports to Japan stopped for technical violations.

Four boxes of frozen beef tongue in a shipment of 250 boxes, totaling about 2 tons, which arrived in Kobe, central Japan, from Cargill Meat Solutions in Dodge City, Kansas, didn't have the required papers from the U.S. government, the agriculture ministry said in a statement.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture told the ministry the shipment was destined for somewhere other than Japan, the statement said.

U.S. authorities were investigating why it ended up in Japan. No material that violated Japan's safety standards for meat imports were found in the shipment, it said.

Japan, a nation that is extremely nervous about food safety, especially imported meat, banned American beef imports in December 2003 after the first case of mad cow disease in the U.S.