By Kim Rahn





The government has banned the sale of Dongsuh Food's popular cereal, Post Almond Flakes, and three other cereal products after coliform bacteria was detected among some samples of the product.

The firm allegedly reused contaminated cereals in new products.

The finding comes five days after the prosecution indicted officials at Crown Confectionery, another large food maker, for knowingly selling organic snacks with high levels of harmful germs for over five years.

According to the Ministry of Food and Drugs, Dongsuh found coliform bacteria in cereal products made at its factory in Jincheon, North Chungcheong Province, during its own quality inspection. However, the company did not discard the contaminated cereals, but instead mixed them with uncontaminated stock and sold them on as new products.

Besides Post Almond Flakes, Oreo O's, Granola Papaya Coconut and Granola Cranberry Almond were taken off shelves.

"We seized and discarded the contaminated products. We also suspended the sale of all the four cereal products, as we don't know yet how many new products contain contaminated cereal," a ministry official said.

The ministry is examining seized products and will take follow-up measures when test results are available.

The chance the firm reused contaminated materials in other products is thought to be almost certain, given that the factory's daily work logs showed other cereal products, which the company advertised as being effective in losing weight, had coliform bacteria too.

"According to the logs, the company ordered workers to mix contaminated cereals with uncontaminated ones, so the former could account for 10 percent of a box of the cereal," the official said.

On the issue, Dongsuh said that when half-finished products do not pass the quality test due to coliform bacteria, it is a normal process to sterilize and reuse them. "After such a process, we conduct the test again and products passing it are released on the market. So the complete products do not have coliform bacteria," a Dongsuh official was quoted as saying in a local daily.

However, food makers are obliged to report coliform bacteria detection in their products to the ministry according to the law. They also should not sell such products.

In the previous case with Crown Confectionery, the company found that two of its organic wafer products had high levels of harmful germs through its own quality examination made in early 2009. The firm then concealed the findings and sold about 1 million boxes of the products through August of this year.