Kotobuki Foods sold imported school-lunch meat as domestic until inspectors opened the box

Kotobuki Foods, a Sagamihara food processor supplying school lunches and business customers, sold meat with a domestic label. For buyers running public lunch programs, that label mattered: domestic ingredients were part of the bid promise and helped justify the supplier's place in the procurement chain.

In October 2023 an unannounced inspection by the Kawasaki City Board of Education found foreign pork mixed into meat supplied as domestic. Subsequent reports said Kotobuki Foods had delivered about 1,770 kilograms of pork and chicken, including products from Thailand, Canada, Spain and Mexico, to school lunch centers and businesses in Sagamihara, Kawasaki, Atsugi and six Tokyo cities.

Police later accused the former president and others of violating Japan's Unfair Competition Prevention Act. Tokyo Reporter, citing Asahi Shimbun, reported that the former president admitted the practice and said it had continued for more than ten years because domestic meat was expensive and the company did not want to lose bids.

By the time the case surfaced, Kotobuki Foods was in bankruptcy proceedings. The fraud shows how a procurement label can become the whole business model: once winning the bid depends on a domestic-origin promise the supplier cannot profitably meet, the temptation is to relabel the cost problem instead of solving it.