Two Japanese food giants recently disgraced amid food poisoning and false labelling scandals are mulling a business tie-up to rebuild their businesses.

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Dairy giant Snow Brand Milk Products (SBMP) said yesterday [Thursday] that it is talks with the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations (Zen-noh) over a joint restructuring effort that could see them link up their milk businesses and market their products under a unified brand.


The details and the timetable, they revealed, will be worked out at a final date.


The two companies reported the move in separate statements. SBMP, which was responsible for Japan’s largest food poisoning outbreak in 2000 and whose subsidiary Snow Brand Foods recently admitted to falsely labelling imported beef as domestic to gain government BSE subsidies, said the alliance would help its revitalisation plan.


“We are earnestly putting together our restructuring plan, but we believe the basis must be the recovery of our customers’ trust,” the company said.

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Officials at Zen-noh told Dow Jones that it was contacted by SBMP about the possibility of a tie-up. Zen-noh MD, Hiroaki Mimura, said the companies were likely to work together on the production of milk and dairy products.


Mimura added that in the future there is the possibility of teaming up with other organisations in milk production.

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