Cold discomfort: Packages of frozen foods produced by Japanese food company Aqli Foods. More than 300 people across Japan have fallen ill after eating frozen food products contaminated with pesticide.

Cold discomfort: Packages of frozen foods produced by Japanese food company Aqli Foods. More than 300 people across Japan have fallen ill after eating frozen food products contaminated with pesticide. Photo: AFP

Tokyo: More than 300 people across Japan have fallen ill after eating frozen food products contaminated with pesticide.

Shoppers have reported vomiting, diarrhoea and other symptoms of food poisoning after eating food produced at a plant in Gunma, north of Tokyo, according to surveys carried out by the Asahi Shimbun and other local media.

The plant, run by a subsidiary of the nation's largest seafood firm Maruha Nichiro Holdings, is at the centre of the nation's latest food poisoning scandal.

Japanese police have launched an investigation into the company after it revealed last month that some of its frozen food products were tainted with malathion, an agricultural chemical often used to kill aphids in corn and rice fields.

According to local media, police suspect the pesticide was mixed into the products at the plant, which produced frozen foods including pizza and lasagna.

Asahi Shimbun said on Tuesday it found the number of people who fell sick ''exceeded 300'', while national broadcaster NHK reported the previous day that 359 people had been taken ill.

Maruha Nichiro said it had received about 460,000 phone calls from consumers in connection with the incident, including complaints about sickening after eating the products, a company spokesman said.

Calls also included complaints about the unusual odour of some products and ways to return the products, the spokesman said.

The food maker had so far recovered some 1.2 million packages of potentially tainted products out of 6.4 million it wants to recall, he added.

Maruha Nichiro said the products in question had not been shipped overseas.

The spokesman declined to comment on a possible impact of the incident on the company's earnings, only saying: ''We have to specify the cause first.''

AFP