In August 2025, Ministop found that 25 franchise stores across seven Japanese prefectures had falsified consume-by dates on rice balls, boxed lunches and other food prepared in-store. Some labels were attached hours after preparation, extending the displayed shelf life by as much as 14 hours; at some stores the practice had continued for up to three years.
Ministop investigated all 1,786 stores and identified about 70 affected product lines. Staff, owners or managers altered labels partly to reduce food waste, and some managers directed employees to do it. Two customers reported stomach pain or vomiting after buying boxed lunches, although no causal link was established.
The chain stopped making rice balls and boxed lunches nationwide on 9 August, extended the halt to prepared side dishes on 18 August, and suspended in-store prepared-food sales at 1,784 shops. It said all 25 implicated franchise owners would be replaced and added production-data checks, timed label printers and a kitchen reporting hotline.
Ministop halted fresh-food sales at 1,784 shops after finding 25 stores falsified labels, extending shelf life by 14 hours, then replaced owners and added timed printers.
Franchise stores bore the cost of discarded food, giving owners and managers a direct incentive to extend labels instead of recording waste.
Labels could be printed or attached after preparation without a system-enforced production timestamp, leaving a safety rule dependent on manual honesty.
Head-office monitoring did not compare production, sales and disposal data closely enough to expose a practice that continued for up to three years.
When local operators pay for waste, expiry controls cannot rely on manual labels. Tie each label to a recorded production time and audit production, sales and disposal together.
Ministop placed a quality-control specialist under its president, created a kitchen whistleblowing line, strengthened third-party hygiene inspections and planned camera and printer controls before resuming sales.
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE