DECA mulls approval for Japanese milk, poultry to be sold at commissaries
By Jennifer H. Svan, Stars
and Stripes
Fred Knapp / Stars and Stripes
Fuio Fukuhara stocks frozen chicken at the Camp Zama commissary on Tuesday. Defense
Commissary officials are trying to find local poultry farms that could provide fresh
chicken to commissaries in Japan and Okinawa. DECA is also trying to get fresh local milk
into the stores. |
Think “ultra-pasteurized” milk tastes funny? Tired of
defrosting frozen chicken breasts? Have a hankering for fresh fish?
Then listen up.
Commissary shoppers in Japan and Okinawa may no longer have to browse
Japanese grocery stores for a juicy piece of chicken or a gallon of milk with a normal
shelf life.
At the request of customers, the Defense Commissary Agency is
exploring ways to sell locally-produced milk, poultry and fish in its stores, said Chief
Warrant Officer Robert Klaiss, DeCA food safety officer for Guam, Korea, Okinawa and
Japan.
U.S. Army Veterinary Services in Japan is nearing the end of a
two-year inspection of a large Japanese dairy plant in Hokkaido, Japan’s northern
island. The agency also made a recent visit to a poultry factory in southern Japan.
If either plant makes the grade, they will become the first Japanese
sources authorized to sell milk or poultry to the U.S. government in Japan and Okinawa. A
fish supplier, meanwhile, has not been identified.
Yotsuba, a corporate-run dairy in Hokkaido, is teetering on approval.
Japanese milk and poultry must meet strict U.S. health and safety standards.
“If we can get this one perfect, we’ve got the
source,” said Army Lt. Col. Bob Walters, commander of Japan District Veterinary
Command.
After DeCA identifies a source, the company must be inspected and its
records audited.
Though U.S. and Japan standards address the same safety issues,
“they use different solutions” to fix the problems, Walters said.
“When we hit one of those issues, there’s no middle
ground,” he said. “They either have to convince me that their methods provide
the same level of public health safety as the U.S. method does, or they have to change it
to the U.S. method.”
Milk — since it’s rarely cooked before ingested — is
an especially sensitive health issue, Walters said.
In inspecting Yotsuba, Walters relies on a 293-page pasteurized milk
ordinance and 500 pages of sanitary standards.
No detail is left unturned, from pipe diameter and composition to how
the pipes used to produce milk should be welded together. Walters said a dairy must
incorporate about 40 public health safety controls, such as farm inspection,
transportation, raw milk storage, pasteurization, packaging and milk storage after
pasteurization.
When he visits the Hokkaido plant again in September, it’s
likely he’ll either approve or disapprove the plant as a source of milk for U.S.
commissaries in Japan. Officials from Yotsuba weren’t available for comment on the
inspection process.
The company’s milk was determined safe enough almost a year ago
that Walkers allowed Yokosuka Naval Base to sell it on a trial basis.
The 1.75 percent milk and whole milk is a big hit with customers,
said George Hunkin, Yokosuka commissary store manager.
“It’s really good. A lot of people buy it,” he said.
Many customers say the fresh milk tastes better than the
ultra-pasteurized milk sold in commissaries now. Imported from California, that milk has a
shelf life of 60 days since it’s pasteurized at a very high temperature to kill all
bacteria.
Cyd Davis, a military spouse from Camp Courtney, Okinawa, is thrilled
at the prospect of fresh milk at her base commissary.
“If we can get it fresh, I’ll buy it because the milk we do
receive, you’re scared to drink it because it’s pasteurized so much.”
She worries about cost, however.
“Is it going to cost us an arm and a leg just to buy it?”
Yokota Air Base’s commissary also has put in a request to carry
Yotsuba’s milk.
“There’s a lot of people who would like the local milk
because it’s not processed as much,” said Karen Ochsner, Yokota commissary store
director.
Some shoppers at Yokota Air Base aren’t sold on the idea of
Japanese milk, however, because they said it tastes different and is more expensive.
Two military spouses visiting Yokota on Tuesday said they would buy
fresh chicken because of the convenience and hoped the commissaries would sell fresh
poultry, meat and eggs.
Samples of the Japanese milk from Yokosuka are sent weekly to a
Department of Defense veterinary lab in San Antonio for testing. No problems have been
identified, Walters said, and Yotsuba is two tests shy of meeting all U.S. standards.
“They’re 99.9 percent there,” Walters said.
The dairy plant met all “first-step safety controls,”
prompting Walters to approve it for sale at Yokosuka. The plant must redo two tests for
Walters to show all secondary safety controls also are reliable.
If the plant is approved, it would be audited quarterly, and milk
samples would continue to be tested weekly.
“If we identify a problem we can suspend sales,” Walters
said.
The inspection process for poultry is every bit as complicated.
On Feb. 1, 2001, U.S. Army Veterinary Services received a memo from
DeCA requesting a sanitary inspection of Japan Farms, a poultry farm in Kyushu, Japan,
that DeCA wants to use for fresh chicken products.
Walters recently visited the plant that slaughters about 32 million
birds a year, but it did not pass the first inspection criteria.
Before the plant itself is examined, it must show that its poultry
inspection program run by the prefectural government meets U.S. Department of Agriculture
standards. Walters said some deficiencies in this program need corrected before he would
return.
Walters will continue to work with the plant if the local government
is willing to make his suggested changes, but “it could die in its tracks after one
report,” he said of the approval process.
Back to July stories
Page Two news roundup
Stories from June, 2001
Stories from May, 2001
Stories from April, 2001
Stories from March, 2001
Stories from February,2001
Stories from January, 2001
Stories from December, 2000
Stories from November, 2000
Stories from October, 2000
Stories from August and September, 2000
Stories from June and July, 2000
Home |
