Food Control - Import notifications (2021)
In Japan, in 2021, a total of 121 import notifications of fisheries and aquaculture products were recorded by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW). The notifications were organized into the following categories: microbiological, chemical and toxins. As summarized in the table below, most notifications were due to microbiological issues with 94 cases, followed by chemical with 25 cases and by toxins with two cases.
It is important to highlight that there was an increase of the total number of cases of import notifications from 86 in 2020 to 121 in 2021. However, while notifications due to chemical and toxins causes decreased, those of microbiological causes doubled from 47 cases in 2020 to 94 in 2021.
Import notifications by category (Number cases - 2021)
| Month | Microbiological | Chemical | Toxins | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| February | 11 | 4 | 0 | 15 |
| March | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
| April | 10 | 2 | 0 | 12 |
| May | 2 | 5 | 0 | 7 |
| June | 12 | 2 | 0 | 14 |
| July | 12 | 3 | 0 | 15 |
| August | 7 | 2 | 0 | 9 |
| September | 14 | 1 | 0 | 15 |
| October | 10 | 2 | 0 | 12 |
| November | 6 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| December | 6 | 1 | 0 | 7 |
| Total | 94 | 25 | 2 | 121 |
Source: MHLW
Percentage of the causes
As shown in the figure below, microbiological cases account for 78 percent of the total notifications, chemical for 21 percent and toxins for one percent.