Japan's Bourbon Corp said it had voluntarily recalled some of its snack products after traces of unapproved NewLeaf Plus potato were detected. It was the second case this week after the nationwide recall by Calbee Foods of its Jagariko snack on Wednesday and Japan's third since the imposition in April of stricter rules to guard against imports of unapproved GM products. In late May, Japan's Health Ministry ordered Osaka-based House Foods Corp to recall its snack product O'Zack after the ministry found traces of NewLeaf Plus in it.

The new rules set zero tolerance for imports containing unapproved gene-altered products and require mandatory labelling for approved GM products.

Bourbon said it was recalling its Potelka snack produced before June 1, after tests for both NewLeaf Plus and NewLeaf Y potatoes turned out positive.

Sales of the Potelka products totalled 1.1 billion yen in the 2000/01 fiscal year, against the company's total sales of 86.47 billion yen, a company spokesman said. The recall was expected to cost the company about 80 million yen.

Potelka was made from potato ingredients imported from the United States with certificates that showed they were non-GM products, he said. The NewLeaf varieties, developed by leading U.S. agricultural biotech firm Monsanto Co to protect potatoes from insects and potato viruses, have not been approved in Japan. In 1998, Monsanto's Japan unit applied for approval of NewLeaf Plus, but a decision is still pending.

The food recalls, reminiscent of the StarLink furore late last year, has again deepened fears among the top two U.S. corn importers, Japan and South Korea, over the possibility of more gene-spliced StarLink corn ending up on shop shelves.

The discovery of StarLink in food products last October by a consumer group had prompted Japan, where StarLink is not approved even for animal feed, to distrust U.S. corn and cut its buying.

"The potato snack recalls have the same basic problem as the StarLink corn does," said a senior trader with the food industry. The recalls suggest that the only way to avoid unapproved GM products is to use other substitutes for corn or not buy corn from the United States, said another trading house trader.

Japan, which imports four million tons of corn for food use each year and another 12 million tons for animal feed, is the biggest buyer of U.S. corn. In South Korea, the Korea Corn Processing Industry Association, which imports two million tons of corn a year for food use, has already shunned U.S. corn at its import tenders. Korea imports another six million tons a year for animal feed.

Concern about StarLink grew after the South Korean government detected traces of it early this year in some corn imports that carried official U.S. non-StarLink certificates.