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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Mike Benbow, Business Editor benbow@heraldnet.com   Published: Friday, March 28, 2008 Rat found in food shipped from Snohomish to S. Korea Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea -- A suspected rat was found in frozen vegetables imported from the United States, prompting South Korea's food protection agency to order a recall and an investigation, an official said Friday. The suspected rat, 2½ inches long, was found this week in mixed vegetables processed by Columbia Foods Inc. of Snohomish, Wash., said Choi Soon-gon, deputy director of food management at the Korea Food and Drug Administration. The frozen vegetables were sold at four of Costco's six stores in South Korea, company officials said. Costco, an Issaquah, Wash.-based warehouse club operator, confirmed that it reported the case to the food agency Wednesday, two days after receiving a complaint from a South Korean customer. Nearly 9,300 tons of the vegetables were imported from the United States early this month, about 16 percent had been sold and the rest will be dumped, Choi said. KFDA is investigating how the suspected rat got into in the frozen vegetables, and the agency is deciding whether to send a fact-finding team to the U.S. factory, he added. Calls late Friday from south Korea to Columbia Foods, also based in Washington state, went unanswered. The announcement came a week after a suspected rat's head was found in a popular South Korean snack food produced by its Chinese factory. Choi said KFDA was coordinating with China to send investigators to the factory in Qingdao in eastern China to determine the cause of the contamination.

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