A Taste of Wellness for Savoury and Snacks
Givaudan
Shares in Nippon Meat Packers soared on Monday after Japan's farm ministry said the troubled meat processor and its subsidiaries would be allowed to resume sales of beef products following a mislabelling scandal.
The stock was up by its daily limit of 100 yen - or 10.73 per cent - at 1,032 yen by 0505 GMT after the ministry said during the midday trading break it would notify Nippon Meat of its decision to lift the ban at 3:00 p.m. (0600 GMT).
The shares had ended the morning session up 14 yen at 946.
Nippon Meat's sales have plunged since it said last month that its Nippon Food subsidiary had mislabelled products to take advantage of a government buyback scheme after an outbreak of mad cow disease in Japan last year.
The firm's initial response to the scandal was deemed too lenient by the farm ministry, which also temporarily banned Nippon Meat from selling beef until it completed its investigation of the unit responsible for the mislabelling.
In an effort to restore government and consumer confidence in the firm, Nippon Meat said last month that its chairman and founder would leave the company and its president would be demoted to senior managing director.
The company's new president, Yoshikyo Fujii, will hold a news conference at 6:30 p.m. (0930 GMT) to discuss measures the firm will take to prevent future mislabelling.
Nippon Meat has faced a fierce backlash against all of its products since the scandal broke. Many leading retailers pulled its non-beef products from their shelves, and the meat processor said on 20 August that sales of ham and sausage products had fallen 60 per cent.
Sales of meat and processed food had fallen an estimated 50 per cent, and the company said it saw little hope of a short-term turnaround.
The mislabelling was the latest in a series of cover-ups and misdeeds by Japan's food industry. It came to light after a similar scandal this year in which Snow Brand Food, formerly Japan's sixth-largest meat packer, had mislabelled imported beef.
Nippon Meat rival Prima Meat Packers also saw its shares fall nearly 15 per cent in Monday trading after a weekly magazine reported that Japan's third-biggest meat processor may have also improperly labelled some of its products.
Prima Meat said in a statement later on Monday that the report was groundless, and by 0505 GMT its shares had regained some ground but were still down 11.48 per cent at 54 yen. The Nikkei average was down 1.01 percent.
Despite the sullying of its image, many analysts said even before the lifting of the sales ban that Nippon Meat was in better shape than other scandal-racked firms and would be able to bounce back in the long-term so long as no further misdeeds arise.