#Radiation in Food: Radish Boya to Set Its Own Cesium Standard

Radish Boya, an online grocer who first alerted Shizuoka Prefecture that one of the Shizuoka teas contained radioactive cesium exceeded the provisional limit by its own testing, is going to set its own standard for cesium in food and drinks that it sells, which is one-tenths of the national provisional standards.

From Yomiuri Shinbun (9/5/2011):

食品宅配サービスの「らでぃっしゅぼーや」（本社・東京）は５日、同社で販売する食品や飲料水などに対する放射性セシウムの自主規制値を設定したと発表した。

Radish Boya, a home delivery service of foodstuff headquartered in Tokyo, announced on September 5 that the company had set its own safety limit for radioactive cesium in food and drinks that it sells.

自主規制値は、コメや青果物、肉類が１キロ・グラムあたり５０ベクレル、牛乳や飲料水が同２０ベクレルで、いずれも国の暫定規制値の１０分の１となる。

The company's safety limit for rice, vegetables and fruits, and meat is 50 becquerels/kilogram, and for milk and drinking water 20 becquerels[/liter]. They are both one-tenths of the national provisional safety limits.

　東北・関東甲信越の１７都県を産地とする食品などは、入荷前に抜き取り検査を行い、自主規制値を超えるものは配達しない。同社は１０万５０００人が会員登録しているが、福島第一原子力発電所の事故以降、食品の放射能汚染に関する問い合わせが１万件以上あったという。

The company will conduct sample testing before it purchases the food items from 17 prefectures in Tohoku and Kanto, and will not deliver the items whose cesium content exceeds the company's safety limit. The company has 105,000 registered customers, and there have been over 10,000 inquiries about radiation contamination of food after the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident.

Things to keep in mind, before you rush to order:

• Radish Boya does source from Tohoku and northern Kanto, including Fukushima, Miyagi, and Tochigi, and radioactive cesium has been detected in their testing though not exceeding the provisional safety limit or the company's own limit;
  

• The testing is still a sample testing, though for now there's no practical way to test all;

• It does participate in the campaign by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, "Let's help the disaster-affected areas by eating their produce!"

By the way, looking at the Ministry of Agriculture's site, they do seem to feed the government workers there with potentially contaminated vegetables and meat from the disaster-affected areas...

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