Rosé recall

Takara, one of Japan’s (and therefore the world’s) largest sake makers, has issued a voluntary recall for almost 100,000 bottles of its sparkling sake Mio Premium Rosé. The limited edition product went on sale in January in 300 ml and 750 ml bottles, and was stocked in Japan and Taiwan.

The rosé sake gets its colour from beni-kōji made by Kobayashi Pharmaceutical, which has issued its own voluntary recall for three of its health food products containing beni-kōji due to reports of kidney disease in people taking them. NHK reported that one person had kidney problems after taking one product in January, and Kobayashi confirmed that 26 people had been affected by products made from the same lot of ingredients to date, with 7 hospitalised and 2 needing dialysis.

Their investigation suggests that a specific lot of ingredients was contaminated, but further details are yet to be confirmed as they continue investigating with the help of a university laboratory.

The beni-kōji was supplied to large number of other manufacturers and wholesalers, resulting in over 40 products being recalled due to using beni-koji compounds as colourants. Other recalls include Kankyo Shuzō’s Beni-koji Umeshu, health supplements and snack foods. Takara has not confirmed any risk from Mio Premium Rosé.

(Yomiuri Shinbun, 24 March 2024, Japanese. NHK, 22 March 2024, Japanese. NHK, 25 March 2024, Japanese. Focus Taiwan, 24 March 2024, English)

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Notes
Your regular public service announcement that our beloved kōji, Japan’s national fungus, is also known as Aspergillus oryzae, and its neighbours in the Aspergillus family can be quite dangerous. (This is why you see tane-kōji makers panicking when people blithely suggest growing their own spores from kōji made from purchased spores. You never know what else might start growing in there.)

One of the first suspects in this case was citrinin, a mycotoxin produced by some members of the Aspergillus, Penicillium and Monascus families, which can affect the kidneys and damage genes, but Kobayashi did not find any in their own tests. Another possibility was one or more types of polyketide, molecules that can act as potent antibiotics (erythromycin, clarithromycin, azithromycin) or equally powerful toxins, including the aflatoxin produced by Aspergillus flavus.

Beni-koji – which is actually Monascus purpureus and not a member of the Aspergillus family – can produce the cholesterol drug lovastatin (Mevacor) which is probably why it’s being used in health products. (But there’s a difference between beni-kōji and lovastatin, just as there is between anything mouldy and penicillin.) It is regularly used in China to make hong qu (红曲 / 紅麴, equivalent to beni-kōji) which is used to produce coloured drinks, and in Okinawa to make the fermented food tōfu-yo.