Korean team to investigate China snack factory

Korea’s food protection agency said yesterday it will send a fact-finding team to a Chinese factory that produced a popular snack food recalled after the discovery of a suspected rat’s head.
The Korea Food and Drug Administration will send investigators to the factory in Qingdao, eastern China, which performs initial production steps for shrimp crackers sold by Korea’s leading processed food company, Nongshim, said Choi Jong-dong, a KFDA official.
An agency official has been negotiating with Chinese authorities to schedule the probe, Choi said.
China’s reputation as an exporter has taken a beating in the past year following recalls of products including toothpaste, toys tainted with lead, and a pet food ingredient contaminated with the toxic chemical melamine.
Nongshim has apologized for the incident. This week, it began recalling the snack across the country, said company spokesman Hyun Seok.
The snack ― called Saeukkang in Korean ― has been one of the most popular in Korea since it went on sale in 1971. Nongshim said the snack’s annual sales volume was 60 billion won ($59 million) in recent years.
The scandal flared this week when the KFDA announced a foreign substance believed to be a rat’s head was found in a bag of the food. The agency said it suspected the head was accidentally introduced in Nongshim’s factory in China. AP