ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Masahiro Okafuji, President & CEO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announces a business collaboration with Yantai Jieke Inspection Service Co., Ltd., Headquartered in Yantai, Shandong Province, China, Hereinafter “Jieke”) a food inspection company under the control of Longda Foodstuff Group, one of the leading manufacturers of foodstuffs in China. ITOCHU and Longda Foodstuff Group have capital relations in a number of businesses.

With this business alliance and the alliance with Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences concluded recently, ITOCHU now has inspection centers in Shandong Province, which is a large export base for fresh and processed food for Japan, and in Heilongjiang Province, a leading grain growing region of China. Coupled with inspection by the inspection agencies registered with the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare at the time of the arrival of produce in Japan, ITOCHU has established an exceptionally robust food inspection structure.

Jieke possesses the most sophisticated level of food inspection technologies in China, and has obtained two official certifications, CNAS (an international standard for accrediting testing facilities based on ISO/IEC17025) and CMA (China Measurement Accreditation). Jieke is also a private inspection organization authorized to inspect goods for export on behalf of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People’s Republic of China (AQSIQ), under contract for AQSIQ.

Jieke possesses cutting-edge inspection equipment and conducts comprehensive food testing for 602 residual agrochemicals, 124 residual veterinary drugs, heavy metals, food additives, allergens, mycotoxins, and other contaminants. It is currently inspecting many of the frozen and processed food products that are shipped to Japan by ITOCHU.

With this alliance, ITOCHU will bolster the inspection of the items handled by ITOCHU at Jieke’s inspection facilities, and to ensure that inspections based on the same standards used in Japan continue, the inspection techniques of Japan’s official inspection agencies will also be introduced.

With the recent increase in the number of incidents that threaten the safety of food in both Japan and China, a “Memorandum Concerning Food Safety Promotion Initiatives in Japan and China” was signed by the governments of Japan and China on May 31 to strengthen collaboration in food safety. With the addition of the inspection structure created by this alliance, in addition to the existing marketing functions and distribution networks both inside and outside China, to encourage the creation of merchandise that meet each of the needs of Japan and China, ITOCHU will further enhance and promote the creation of a safe and secure global value chain for food and the establishment of an SIS strategy in China.

• SIS (Strategic Integrated System) Strategy:
  A strategy to produce, distribute and sell merchandise efficiently by vertically integrating the entire flow from resource development to retail domestically and overseas, in all business domains ranging from materials to products and foodstuffs.

Profile of Yantai Jieke Inspection Service Co., Ltd.