Masan officially speaks out about the batch of 18,000 bottles of chili sauce recalled by Japan

On April 2, the Osaka City government announced that the city's Public Health Center had ordered the recall of all chili sauce imported from Vietnam.

Javis Corporation - Representative Director Yasuhiro Naka, headquartered in Higashi-ku, Osaka, is the importer of the above chili sauce shipments. A total of 757 boxes (18,168 bottles) were sold to ISC Industrial Co., Ltd.

The violation, as announced on the Osaka City portal, is that Chin-su chili sauce violates Article 11 (2) of the Food Sanitation Law. Accordingly, the use of benzoic acid is not acceptable in chili sauce in Japan.

Masan chili sauce products in Japan are recalled.

Masan has provided official information regarding this issue. Accordingly, this enterprise affirmed that all products manufactured and distributed by Masan Consumer Goods Joint Stock Company comply with the regulations of Vietnamese law and the importing country on food safety, including regulations on labeling, ingredients and use of additives. Masan said that they only officially export Chin-Su chili sauce products directly to the markets of the US, Canada, Australia, Russia, Czech Republic, China, and Taiwan.

According to information posted on the Osaka City Portal, Japan, the importer made a mistake in labeling. Also according to information from this portal, the food additive benzoic acid is not a banned substance but is used in many different types of food with a maximum content of up to 2.5g/kg. The content of the food additive benzoic acid tested by the Osaka City Public Health Center on this Chin-Su Chili Sauce product is from 0.41-0.45g/kg, which is safe and does not affect the health of consumers according to Japanese regulations.

In Vietnam, food additive benzoic acid is also used in many different foods and Circular 27/2012/TT-BYT dated November 30, 2012 on food additive management, the maximum content of benzoic acid used is 1g/kg of chili sauce product.

"After checking internal information, we confirm that Masan Consumer Goods Joint Stock Company has never directly or indirectly exported Chin-Su chili sauce to Javis Co., Ltd or ISC Industrial Co., Ltd. When exporting directly to the Japanese market, we must comply with Japanese labeling regulations. We regret this incident and believe that if Javis Co., Ltd had contacted us for official import, this labeling incident would not have occurred.

Since we currently do not have a product sample, we cannot make an official conclusion about the origin of this shipment, but it is likely that this is a product exclusively for the Vietnamese market, with the words "Exclusively for the Vietnamese market. Not for export. Exclusively for sale in Vietnam. Exports are not authorized", or it is a product of unknown origin," Masan's press response stated.

This enterprise assessed that the importer, Javis Co., Ltd., suffered "goods recall" damage because it mistakenly imported domestically circulated products of Masan Consumer Goods Joint Stock Company or goods of unknown origin and due to incomplete secondary labeling errors.