Last month a Korean woman reached her hand into a bag of 노래방 새우깡 brand shrimp snacks and pulled out something unfishy — a rat’s head. Manufacturer Nongshim issued a public apology and recalled the snacks. They inspected a factory in South Korea and will go to China to visit another factory involved in the production of the shrimp snack. The Korean media is sounding the alarm over the outsourcing of food production to China. Coming on the heels of last month’s pesticide-tainted gyoza scare, which hospitalized ten people in Japan, this can’t be good news for China’s food export industry.
English versions of the story can be found here and here. In the second link, from the Korea Times, it was reported that
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.
I find it strange that the rat’s head would remain intact and separate during the process of forming the dough into tiny sticks and frying or baking them. Back when I had cable, I used to watch The Food Network, whose show Unwrapped, goes into the factories and reveals the manufacturing process of common brand-name foods. A snack product like shrimp crackers probably gets it shape by forcing the dough through small holes in an extrusion machine, much like the way dried pasta is made. That rat’s head, described as “burnt and covered in oil” yet without any apparent traces of shrimp paste dough, looks too large to have squeezed through a molding hole. I am skeptical of Nongshim’s quick declaration that the rat’s head got into the dough at the Qingdao, China, plant, rather than during the cooking process at the South Korean plant.
32 Comments
Makes the Chickenhead McNugget look positively scrumptious by comparison.
http://www.mad-cow.org/00/chicken_head.jpg
an the chinese be trusted with anything? jing?
http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....0442.story
Well, at least it wasn’t anti-freeze…
As a barbarian I was curious as to what a “bag of shrimp snacks” constituted; links are all in Korean so that was no help.
But sure enough, do a Google search for “shrimp snacks in Korea” and you’ll get the English version; at least the first three results are all about this story.
Turns out it’s a cracker. Can I find them here in the US? Maybe I’ll go buy a few bags, see how they taste with a beer, plus there’s always the chance I’ll win the “lawsuit lottery”.
Here’s the Reuters story:
Is picture #4 the product in question? The blogger didn’t include enough of the bag in the close up for me to see the name of the manufacturer:
http://survivingsouthkorea.blo.....nacks.html
Paul. H,
I think Calbee makes the original Shrimp Flavored Chips.
They might be in a decent sized supermarket. They taste like french fries to me, with a shrimp after taste.
Of course, needless to say, this is another Japanese product that the Koreans took, presumably without license, and made an inferior version. Japanese version is now made in the US, for US consumption, out of California.
Korean version is fried. And, possibly made in China, and assembled to finish in South Korea.
Things like food, North Korea can’t probably provide the resources, but labor they can do better than China. I think Lee Myung Bak will strike some kind of deal to outsource labor to North Korea and simultaneously find a way to kill Kim Jong Il. Thus, preventing all that money going to the North Korean army.
#5 - No, pic #4 is of a different product… The product in question is less of a cracker and more of a ‘doodle’… Think a cheeseless, shrimp-flavored Cheeto, and you’re on the right track… The K-Times article has a decent enough photo of the product bags…
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/ww.....20951.html
Rat heads contain protein no?
According to the article in the IHT’s Joongang supplement, the question most pondered by snacking schoolkids is ‘Where’s the rest of it?’.
Rat heads are not the only thing people should be worrying about. The shimp snack (새우깡) is also flammable so do not get it too close to fire.
Paul,
I added a link to an English version of the story published at Australia’s The Age and inserted an up close photo of the shrimp crackers. They look like crinkled potato sticks but are supposed to taste like shrimp. I was never a fan of them.
At least Nong Shim accepted responsibility. Samsung could learn something from them.
#6 wjk
The original Calbee’s chips use “Antarctic krills”, animal plankton, shrimp-look-alike and a lot cheaper than shrimps. Probably the Korean version uses the same stuff. Antarctic whales feed on the krills.
This is why I think there is growing “sickman of asia” fever sweeping the globe, which I think will stunt China’s growth in the long run.
Paul H, look for the Calbee brand chips.
If it was as awful as Sonagi claims, it wouldn’t be a hit with legit and copycats all over in Korea, China, Vietnam, Thailand, etc.
Natto, thanks for the clarification. I respect you.
#15 - Sonagi never said they were “awful”… For the record, I kind of agree with what she actually said… there’s not a whole lot of discernable shrimp flavor in either brand of chip, although they do tend to fulfill their intended purpose rather well, seeing as most other Korean snack foods are too sweet to really be enjoyed with even the bland piss-water that passes for beer in SK, much less a real brew.
It’s the year of the rat, they’re out in full force. But what I want to know is, who ratted Nongshim out.
A good point was raised by Sonagi. If the snacks are made through an extruding process– the dough is pressed through a hole, how could a rat’s head pass through? It seems to me that the plany in China is being used as a convenient scapegoat.
With the lead-fet of last year where every children’s toy coming out of China seemed to be painted with lead paint, I tend to view the factories in China with suspicion, but I still don’t see how the head could have passed through the machine that shapes the dough.
@#1
Is that real? My roommate wants to know, because he can’t finish the mcnuggets he was enjoying as he saw that pic. (I’m to blame)
Dunno how the original or the other versions taste, but I always thought Saewookang was mostly salty (perhaps that’s why it goes well with beer). Great. Now every time I munch on them, I’ll think of this.
@#10
Are we talking paper flammable or butane gas flammable?
#19 “Is that real?…” (referring to the chicken head McNugget picture)
As real as anything you learn about on the internet (ie w/o seeing it with your own eyes). I remember seeing the story when it occurred.
I laughed pretty hard when I first came to this thread and saw #1 because the chicken head McNugget was the first thing that came into my mind as well. Turns out if you google the phrase you will get numerous results; one is a story from Hampton Roads VA local paper 30 Nov 2000.
My memory of seeing the story is (I think) more recent than that — which makes me wonder if there has been more than one chicken head McNugget lately! Not sure I want to know the answer — however I’ve decided to take my cue from the McDonald’s manager quoted in the story below:
(quote)NEWPORT NEWS - Katherine Ortega was looking forward to eating a chicken dinner after a family outing Tuesday night.
She ordered a box of fried wings from McDonald’s and was putting them on plates for her two children when she found a chicken part that definitely wasn’t a wing.
“I noticed that it had a beak and it had eyes,” said Ortega. “I screamed.” The unusual piece turned out to be a fried chicken head.
Ortega called the McDonald’s on Warwick near Hickory Point Boulevard where she purchased the dinner and told a restaurant manager about it. She said the manager was pretty matter-of-fact.
“He said, ‘Just bring it back. We’ll send it back to the company,’ ” Ortega said.
The manager told her that she could have a refund or another box of wings. But Ortega said she had lost her appetite for chicken….(unquote)
http://daveola.com/Vegetarian/Chicken_Head.html
I refuse to be less manly than a McDonald’s manager — and so should your roommate. Tell him to pack up another box of McNuggets in his old kit bag and smile, smile, smile.
Plus, I am sure all the rats have been eaten by now…
nong shim is a high quality company with global aspirations. i lament the fact that the koreans, just like us americans, are in a race to the bottom of the pay scale. this happened in china.
Poll question: Today, was someone at Nongshim fired, or was someone shouted at for 3 hours, or was someone transferred to Jindo?
I’d bet on the shouting.
Pawi,
Yep, I bet all those people in countries with advanced culinary tastes like France, Singapore and the US can’t wait to sample their 38 different varieties of gochujang-flavoured ramyen.
‘Yep, I bet all those people in countries with advanced culinary tastes like France, Singapore and the US can’t wait to sample their 38 different varieties of gochujang-flavoured ramyen.’
yep, just like hyundai, kia, lg, samsung, ect. lol. you must do a lot of pretending when it comes to koreans. the french? who says they’re high class? you? lol! just look at ya. lol!
It’s when people around here start talking about Korean food that we really plumb the depths of ignorance and bigotry.
Pawi,
Back in the real world I have a choice. I have forsaken my LG phone for a nokia, my Hyundai for a Toyota and pretty much every banal Korean food option for something edible.
Excuse me, but did you call Korean food banal? As a small country, Korea doesn’t have the diversity of produce, livestock, and herbs and spices that make Chinese and Indian food so popular, but Korean cuisine is a creative and delicious assortment of dishes using nearly every edible thing on the peninsula. My absolute favorite meal is hanjungshik.
You are the rare waegook who doesn’t like Korean food. There’s no accounting for taste.
Mmm…but he lives in Indonesia now. I moved to Seoul after living for over a year in Singapore/KL. It was hard leaving the Malay curries behind. I eat Korean almost every day, but I’d give it up before I’d give up fish head curry.
I spent so many vacations in Malaysia and Singapore I practically lived there. The food scene in Malaysia is better than in Indonesia simply because of the greater choices between Malay, Indian, Chinese, and Peranakan fusion cuisines. Is there a better place to meet for lunch than a hawkers’ center? I traveled for nearly a month on Java and while the food was good, it lacked the variety found on the Malay peninsula. Curries are delicious, but I’d give them up before I’d give up Korean namul.
I wonder if Aaron’s rants reflect a outside-the-bubble Korean culture shock. My friends and I used to do the same thing when we’d take a vacation. “Look at these dishes,” we’d exclaim. “They’re actually different colors, not all red.” “Every other car on the street isn’t a Hyundai.” After awhile, though, what’s novel is no longer new, and we were always glad to come home to Korea.
Does anyone know why that is? I know certain crops just won’t grow in the Korean climate, but that still leaves plenty of herbs, spices, and whatnot that could easily have been adopted… They certainly embraced things like the chili pepper, potatoes, and napa cabbage with great gusto.
Indonesian food is slightly boring, but tasty enough. However, I eat mostly Chinese there, because my clients are Chinese-Indonesian, so my knowledge of Indonesian food is limited. Likewise for Malaysian food — same reason… But Sonagi is right about Singapore: the diversity is great — and food safety way above what one can find on the streets of Jakarta or even KL…
Then again, if you want diversity while staying within one country, go to Shenzhen: the variety of Chinese cuisines is stunning. And you can’t beat the price!