Japanese Burley has been given the all-clear.
Japan Tobacco Inc. has been conducting pre-purchase tests for radioactive materials in Japanese domestic leaf tobacco since the accident at the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in 2011.
Other tests have been carried out at each stage of its production process.
‘Prior to this year’s Japanese domestic tobacco harvest, the company has again been conducting radioactive material testing on leaf tobacco before purchase, with the support of tobacco growers,’ JT said in a note posted on its website.
‘Testing of this year’s Burley have now been completed, showing none of the leaf tobacco tested exceeded the JT standard value (Radioactive cesium: 100 Bq/kg).
‘Furthermore, JT will continue with its scheme of testing domestic leaf tobacco after purchase, and testing and monitoring a number of times at each stage of the production process.
The pre-purchase tests were carried out on 24 samples from the Tochigi, Fukushima, and Miyagi prefectures by the company’s research centre using ORTEC germanium semi-conductor detectors.
No tobacco contamination
