Shanghai government officials yesterday denounced a CCTV "3.15" program on Wednesday claiming Muji had sold food that could be contaminated with radiation.
Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau said it did not find Muji Shanghai — one of the companies named in the program — had imported any foods from radiation areas in Japan.
The bureau said it had carried out an inspection of the company yesterday.
Muji Shanghai said the program had misunderstood the registration process of its imported foods.
CCTV reported Muji stores in China were selling food items imported from areas around Fukushima in Japan in contravention of a ban by China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine. The ban was imposed after radiation concerns after the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster in 2011.
The two imported food products, cereal beverage and muffin, shown in the program were manufactured in Fukui-ken and Osaka prefectures, Muji said.
CCTV has not responded to yesterday's developments.
Meanwhile, Xinzhiyuan, a Shanghai e-commerce company, also exposed on Wednesday's CCTV program, had already been fined last year for the misdeeds reported on Wednesday's program, officials said yesterday.
Xinzhiyuan was fined 10,000 yuan (US$1,470) and 5,000 yuan respectively by the market supervision authorities in the Pudong New Area and Jing'an District for false advertisement, the officials said.
CCTV's program on Wednesday said Xinzhiyuan had published fake information online to trick people into buying a food item advertised as a health product able to cure cancer within days.
The company paid for an entry on baike.com, China's version of Wikipedia, and advertised many nonexistent effects of the product, according to CCTV.
The product, "Jizao 5S," was described in the entry as a kind of algae containing five rare and precious elements that could effectively curb the growth of tumors. The cancerous cells of a liver cancer patient would disappear after using the product for seven days, the entry claimed.
Nearly 10,000 boxes were sold within a month, the company's deputy general manager told the TV quality investigation program.
