New York, Feb. 2 - An investigation into 30 workers as well as the manufacturing process at a factory in China which produced frozen meat dumplings linked to a food-poisoning outbreak in Japan has turned up no problems, a quality control official in the northern Chinese province of Hebei said Saturday, Kyodo news agency reported.
Cheng Fang, head of the Hebei Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, told a press conference that the factory in the province does not use a particular pesticide that was found in the food-poisoning case in Japan, Kyodo reported.
"We found no problems" in the ingredients or the manufacturing process at the factory, Cheng said. "We are paying close attention" to the question of how the harmful pesticide found its way into the product that made people ill in Japan, he added, Kyodo reported.
Cheng said his office, which is in charge of the supervision of quality of goods for export, investigated 30 people involved in manufacturing and administration at the factory, Kyodo reported.
"We are carrying out deep investigations into the case," he said.
According to Cheng, investigations also included tests on dumplings produced within 11 days of both Oct. 1 and 20, which were when the products that made people sick in Japan were produced. He said no traces of the pesticide had been found, Kyodo reported.
Cheng said that quality control tests have been carried out at the factory a total of 24 times from February 2007 to January 2008, and that no problems had been found in any of them, Kyodo reported.
The Japanese government has confirmed cases of 10 people becoming sick in Chiba and Hyogo prefectures after consuming the dumplings that were contaminated with the pesticide, Kyodo reported.
Tianyang Food, the producer of the dumplings, was also scheduled to hold a press conference later Saturday, Kyodo reported.