Korean Job Discussion Forums

[garykasparov]

Rat Head Forces Producer to Recall Popular Snack


The material suspected to be a part of the head of a rat, which was found in the snack. / Yonhap
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

The nation's largest snack maker, Nongshim, made a public apology Tuesday for one of its best-selling items containing the head of a small rodent. The company shut down the snack production line, and supermarkets are already removing them from their shelves.

The apology came after gray skin-like material, 1.6 centimeters in length, was found last month inside a jumbo-sized Nongshim snack, ``Saewookkang'' (shrimp snack). The Food and Drug Administration on Monday issued a correctional order to the snack manufacturer.

The ``material'' was very hard and covered in oil and burnt hair, and it also had the remains of eyes and a nose, which led the administration to conclude it to be the head of a rat.

A customer had reportedly called Nongshim asking for a refund and a recall on all of its product made on that day. Initially her requests were denied. However, later the company tried to compensate her and recalled all the products in the market, she said.

The company explained that a factory in China makes the dough and sends it to a factory in Busan to fry, pack and distribute it. ``I doubt the frying process in Busan is unhygienic, but we are looking into the possibility of the material being added during the dough process at our factory in China,'' a Nongshim spokesman said during the public apology.


A hypermarket employee packs recalled ``Saewookkang,'' a popular local shrimp snack, in Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap
However, the market has already plummeted over the news. E-Mart, Lotte Mart, Home Plus, Homever and several other large supermarket chains decided on Monday to stop selling the snack indefinitely.

The online world is abuzz over how the matter could have passed the three-step inspection at the Busan factory and how Nongshim should be punished. The FDA has only given a correctional order.

``What gets me angry is that the company tried to play the whole thing low key and I ate several bags of Saewookkang,'' an angry netizen (ID: KTU) said.

The fact that Nongshim has raised the snack price by 100-200 won due to rises in raw materials prices earlier this year is adding to public anger, experts said.

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http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/03/117_20951.html

[spliff]

Luckily, I don't eat that crap.

[Dome Vans]

[mistermasan]

a few years back in taiwan i really enjoyed a particular green tea.i was sipping from a bottle of it in classone day and the kids were aghast. i asked them what was up. seems there had a been a scandal i was unaware of: a missing factory worker from the drink manufacturer had been found soaking in one of the vats where the tea was made for sometime.

yummy.

[genezorm]

i like how they try to shift the blame to china
like they are not responsible for what their factory in china does

[Lekker]

My friend works for NongSim's department of importing and exporting. I was supposed to meet him on Monday night but he had to cancel because of mountains of paperwork. I talked to him last night about this.

Three weeks ago, some lady opens a bag of that nasty shit "in her home." I'm not in anyone's defense on this, but how does anyone know that the woman who found the rat's head didn't put it there herself?

Dongsim offered her a large sum of money but she refused.

That was the first problem that occurred. The second problem that came about a week later or so was when a sales rep from Seoul went to her house to try to apologize to her and keep quiet about it or something like that. She then went to the KFDA. Then they exposed the story to the whole country, which upset a lot of people because their favorite Noribang Snack was supposedly tainted with rat skulls.

The company tried to brush the problem under the carpet. I had to explain to my friend what "brush it under the carpet" meant. I asked him if he felt embarrassed to be working for Donsim and he said "yeah, a little."

"So why doesn't your company get a lawyer for their defense?"
"If we were to get a lawyer that would mean that the problem would go on for longer. We want to finish this problem quickly."

He tells me that they have an image to protect, that their reputation is in jeopardy. Then he tells me that it will all blow over. The same thing happened to a Korean chocolate company about a year ago when someone found larvae inside the chocolate. Sick.

Again though, how does anyone know or not if she put it there herself to try to get some money out of them? Didn't this kind of thing happen back in the States when a woman implanted a syringe inside of a Pepsi can in a convenient store but her dumb-ass failed to realise that the store surveillance camera had caught her in the act?

Unfortunately there is no evidence that the woman could have or couldn't have put the rat's head in the bag, so the company is SOL. My sincerest apologies since everything is in the customer's favor. I honestly think she put it there herself in an attempt to collect more money than they would offer her.

[ED209]

She could have faked it. They need to run some lab tests.

First, how do you test a rat to see if it's not Korean?

[reactionary]

i can't stand even the smell of that snack when people are eating it. i'm glad it will be unpopular for awhile.

[nicholas_chiasson]

-I feel sick as I've eaten kg's of the stuff.

[tzechuk]

Yeah, it's pretty horrifying.

My daughter likes it and seeing it's supposed to be *non-fry*, I give it to her from time to time...

I guess we will have to wait and see what happens next...

[Mi Yum mi]

[nicholas_chiasson]

actually...if the rat had actually been 'fried' as gross as it is...it wouldn''t be any more likely to make you sick than anything else fried in hot oil. But the shrimp-snacks are 'non-frying' so why was the rat-head fried at all?

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

[nomad-ish]

she could have put it in

side note, i read a while ago about some woman that actually put a chopped off finger in her soup at a restaurant and tried suing them. they found her out when the finger was examined and they found it hadn't been cooked.

[Suwoner10]