Snow Brand Milk Products Co. resumed milk production at its Nagoya plant Thursday morning, the first of the company's 20 plants across the country to do so.
Resumption of production follows a 15-day suspension of operations in the wake of a food-poisoning outbreak that has left more than 14,700 people sick, mainly in western Japan, since late June, the company said.
The Nagoya plant produced 82,000 bottles of milk in the morning. After bacteria checks, the products will be delivered today to retailers that will begin selling them Saturday morning, company officials said.
It will resume production of paper-packaged milk Saturday for sale at retailers from Sunday evening, the officials said.
The resumption followed Tuesday's decision by the Health and Welfare Ministry to declare 10 of Snow Brand's 20 factories safe.
Of the company's nine other facilities declared safe by the health ministry, those in Sapporo, Tokyo and Fukuoka will resume operations Friday.
Its Aomori, Kobe and Hiroshima plants will resume operations Saturday and those in Noda, Chiba Prefecture, and Ebina, Kanagawa Prefecture, will begin output on Sunday.
The remaining Kyoto factory will reopen on Saturday at the earliest.
Snow Brand has said it hopes to resume operations at the 10 other factories around Aug. 3 or 4, pending confirmation from the health ministry that the facilities are safe.
Snow Brand products have been withdrawn from shelves at supermarkets and convenience stores nationwide and many retailers remain hesitant about selling Snow products due to lingering consumer concerns.
During the last fiscal year, the Nagoya factory produced about 100,000 kiloliters of 55 brands of milk and milk products. It also made about 8,000 kiloliters of 51 brands of ice cream.
After being hit with the suspension order July 12, the factory continued producing only ice cream.