Namyang Dairy on Wednesday said it has asked the police to look into a recent incident in which a dead frog was found in one of its baby formula cans, claiming that the frog in question “could not have been put there” during the production process.

“The production process is completely automated, making it impossible for other substances to be put inside a product. We have requested local police to determine exactly how it happened,” the company said via press release.

It added that the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety is investigating the product in question.

Earlier this week, several local news outlets reported that a housewife in South Jeolla Province found the dried-up body of a 4.5-centimeter-long frog inside one of Namyang Dairy’s baby formulas.

Namyang Dairy explained that formula is put through seven filtration films that only allow substances smaller than 2.8 millimeters to pass through, which means there is no way a frog could have gotten in during the process. The filtered formula is then dehydrated in a high-temperature, high-pressure environment and kept in a dry state for two weeks.

The company said that a frog’s body could not have retained its form after such a process, suggesting a child may have put the frog inside the can as a joke.

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)