A posting about maggots in Pepero, a cookie stick dipped in compound chocolate, made by Lotte Confectionery Co., Ltd. (www.lotteconf.co.kr) has become an online hot issue.
On Jan. 19, a posting and related pictures with title of “My son ate Pepero full of living maggots” were uploaded in an online community.
The one who uploaded the posting claimed that her mother-in-law bought her son a pack of almond and chocolate Pepero made by Lotte Confectionery. While her son tried to tear the package to find a broken piece of Pepero, many bugs like maggots were all over the cookie sticks.
The writer of the posting, the boy’s mother said that those cookie sticks had a lot of holes in them and covered by odd power which she thought, did not seem to be chocolate.
“The service center and an official from Lotte Confectionery told her that they checked but there was a problem not in the manufacturing process but in the distribution, so they will voluntarily report this case to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) to check the sanitary of the distribution factory and collect the products distributed in the same way as the troubled one,” the writer said.
She also said, “The district office noted that a claim from a consumer is treated like a voluntary repot by a company, leading only to inspection of the district office with jurisdiction. It is likely to come to an end with no results since the subject who can be blamed is not for sure.”
“It means that a consumer who bought a damaged product is forced to satisfied with the exchanged one by the company according to the provision of refund and exchange,” she added.
“I cannot be sure of the situation since I did not receive the discussed product, but it seems that the bugs they found were Plodia interpunctella,” An official from public relations of Lotte Confectionery explained, “They are presumed to be emerged in the process of distribution.”
He also said, “The product was made a year ago. If those bugs were in the process of manufacture, they are hardly alive. Right after receiving the complaint, we voluntarily reported the case to MFDS.”
“After reporting, we met the consumers in person and made an apology since we felt morally responsible for the incident no matter how the bugs had got into the product,” he added.
The netizens who read the posting reacted differently with responses like “Is your son alright Lotte may think the apology alone solves everything,””Does the company can avoid the responsibility as long as there is no problem in the process of manufacturing”
Meanwhile, this is not the first time that bugs on Pepero made by Lotte Confectionery were found. In 2013, numerous cases about bugs in Pepero were reported, and there were controversies about the bugs being found in the cookie sticks even in 2011, 2010 and 2005.
