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Foodmaker Nongshim will issue a public apology after an object presumed to be a mouse head was found in a packet of the popular shrimp-flavored snack Sae-u-ggang. The company will halt production of the snacks and collect those in the market to destroy them.
According to the Korea Food and Drug Administration, a 24-year-old woman in Cheongwon, North Chungcheong Province, purchased a pack of Sae-u-ggang and found a 1-1.5 cm-object shaped like the head of a mouse. She complained to the foodmaker and demanded compensation. The demand was rejected.
The KFDA conducted a sanitary inspection of the foodmaker's plant in Busan on March 12, it said in a press release on Monday. However, the inspection was conducted after the company had ground up the object, ostensibly for a test. A Nongshim spokesman said pulverization was needed to discover what the substance was and if there was something wrong with the object. The customer appeared to understand the explanation of the company and the foodmaker thought the case was settled. The firm says it did not destroy the evidence on purpose.
A KFDA official said there were no sanitary problems with the Busan plant, so the authority believes that the object was put in the snack while the product was packaged at Nongshim¡¯s Qingdao factory.
Since the snack hit the market in 1971, some 5.7 billion packs of Sae-u-ggang have been sold. The product accounts for 25 percent of Nongshim's snack sales. Annual sales of the snack amount to W60 billion (US$1=W1,014).
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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