Irvins Salted Egg’s CEO, Irvin Gunawan, personally sent emails to two customers in August 2018 apologising for dead lizards found in products they bought. Right: A dead lizard found in a bag of salted egg fish skin bought by Jane Holloway in Bangkok. (PHOTOS: Screenshot from SCMP video, Decha Holloway)

More reports of lizards in Irvins Salted Egg snacks have emerged since a Thai woman revealed on Facebook last week that a dead gecko was found in a pack of the brand’s salted egg fish skin.

Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore has learnt that the CEO and founder of the popular snack brand, Irvin Gunawan, was aware of dead lizards appearing in the company’s products as early as August last year, months before he apologised publicly over the latest case on Wednesday (2 January).

No product recall was made by the company last year. Gunawan’s press statement this week referred only to the latest case in Bangkok and did not mention other previous similar incidents.

Two other customers told Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore that they also found the dead reptiles in their Irvins snack pouches. One made the discovery in March last year, the other in August. In emails seen by Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore, Gunawan personally apologised to these customers in August 2018 after they complained to the company.

One of the customers reported the incident to Singapore’s food regulator, the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority (AVA). After investigation, the AVA informed her that it did not find hygiene problems at Irvins’ premises.

Wife screamed on finding lizard

Kevin Nguyen, a Vietnamese national from Ho Chi Minh City, said he bought a few bags of potato chips and fried fish skin at Irvins’ outlet in Changi Airport when he came to visit his brother living in Singapore. He bought the snacks on 18 March before his flight back to Vietnam, and his wife opened the offending bag of fried fish skin on 30 March.

“She picked up the lizard from the bag, then screamed and threw it down,” said the 30-year-old iPhone salesman.

Nguyen described the dead lizard as “dry, dark brown and black” and “smaller than a finger”, similar to that in the photos posted on Facebook by Thai national Jane Holloway last Saturday (29 December), who made her purchase at a supermarket in Bangkok.

A dead lizard found in a packet of Irvins Salted Egg fried fish skin bought by Vietnamese Kevin Nguyen on 18 March 2018 at Changi Airport. (PHOTO: Kevin Nguyen) More

Nguyen posted a photo of the lizard on Facebook on 30 August, though his post did not go viral like Holloway’s. Staff from Irvins Salted Egg contacted Nguyen on seeing the photo and offered him a free product in exchange.

In response, Nguyen gave the company his brother’s email address. On 31 August, CEO Gunawan, who is an Indonesia-born Singapore resident, emailed Nguyen’s brother personally to apologise and offered to compensate him for medical fees if necessary. Nguyen did not press Irvins for compensation.

“I want to say sorry to you and your brother for the incident,” wrote Gunawan. “I have initiated steps to rectify the production so that this will never happen again and we will get AVA to help us too. To the future we will be much more stricter (sic) in our checking and hygiene.”

AVA cleared Irvins of hygiene issues after complaint

Serina G, a 36-year-old Malaysian pharmacist based in Perth, Australia, told Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore that she ordered Irvins snacks through the company’s website on 21 May and 18 June last year. As Irvins delivered only within Singapore and Malaysia for online orders, Serina had the snacks sent to her aunt’s home in Kuching, Malaysia.

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