The reference to cloned beef below may seem surprising but in fact there was a scandal in 1998 when it emerged that meat from cloned calves had apparently been sold unlabelled in Japan.
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Tokyo govt planning new labels to identify GM food
The Daily Yumiuri, 21 Feb 2001
Yomiuri Shimbun

The Tokyo metropolitan government plans to call on manufacturers to add new labels to the genetically modified food to be sold in Tokyo from fiscal 2001, government sources said.

Under the revised Japan Agricultural Standards Law, if such foods as tofu, miso and corn are genetically modified, manufacturers and wholesalers will be obliged to identify such products from April.

However, the law only requires genetically modified products to be identified in the list of ingredients provided for each product.

The metropolitan government has taken action on the issue of GM food labeling as it believes such foods need to be more conspicuously labeled than presently required under the JAS Law.

The guidelines announced Monday call for labeling food products into the following three categories:
-- All raw materials have been genetically modified.
-- Some raw materials have been genetically modified.
-- No raw materials have been genetically modified.

The guidelines also call for the labeling of cloned beef that is currently excluded from the JAS Law.

The metropolitan government plans to seek public comment on the logos before presenting them to the industry.