Maeil Dairies Issues Apology for Accidental Contamination of Milk Product
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Seoul, Dec 16 (NationPress) Maeil Dairies, a prominent dairy product manufacturer, publicly apologized on Monday following an incident where a cleaning solution was inadvertently mixed into one of its sterilized milk products during production.
In a statement available on the company’s website, Maeil Dairies CEO Kim Seon-hee explained that a valve operation error briefly resulted in the cleaning solution contaminating the 200 milliliter sterilized milk product at the manufacturing facility located in Gwangju, approximately 270 kilometers south of Seoul, on September 19.
"We sincerely apologize to our customers who have been shocked by this issue," Kim stated.
The company revealed that around 50 units delivered to a specific client were impacted by this incident, according to reports from Yonhap news agency.
This situation emerged after several employees at a significant corporate research center reported experiencing symptoms such as stomach pain and discoloration after consuming the product provided in the company cafeteria last Thursday.
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced that it is conducting an on-site investigation into the matter alongside local authorities to determine the cause of the incident.
"We will take appropriate actions under relevant laws once the investigation results are available," the food safety agency stated.
In addition, the agricultural ministry recently disclosed that dairy farmers and enterprises have agreed to maintain the price of raw milk to ease the financial burden on the public amid ongoing inflation.
This agreement came after negotiations that commenced in June to tackle increasing production costs, as noted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.
As leading milk producers like Seoul Dairy Cooperative, Maeil Dairies Co., and Namyang Dairy Products committed to freezing the retail prices of their plain milk, the ministry added that this action will also help mitigate price increases for other products that utilize milk as an ingredient.
Data compiled by Statistics Korea indicated that the production cost of milk rose by 4.6 won per liter compared to the previous year.
