JAPAN: News emerges of more problems at Snow Brands

In the latest scandal to hit Japanese dairy group Snow Brand Milk Products, Monday (25 September) witnessed a recall of over 23,000 bottles of milk by a Snow Brands subsidiary in Fukushima. The product, which had been distributed door to door since Sunday (24 September), was found to contain colon bacilli bacteria. About 5784 bottles have already been consumed in the Tohoku region of northern Japan, the Kanto region surrounding Tokyo and the Kansai area in the west.A spokesman for Snow Brand stressed that "this case won't lead to" a repeat of the summer scandal when nearly 15,000 people fell ill after consuming Snow Brand products. The identified bacteria are not of the type that causes food poisoning and no illnesses have been reported as yet.The recall is now virtually complete, but it will take a long while yet for Snow Brand to recover from a disastrous few months that seem to have tarnished the brand image indelibly. Snow Brands announced earlier this week that it was in partnership talks with Swiss food giant Nestlé - for more information on this story