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| GS25's Snoopy milk products / Courtesy of GS Retail |
By Kim Jae-heun
GS Retail, which operates the convenience store chain GS25, is facing growing criticism for selling banana milk, which was tainted during processing, and not notifying customers of the incident, according to retail industry officials, Tuesday. The company said it sent out the notice related to the milk issue to its franchisees on July 1, but did not ask the stores to notify buyers.
"The Snoopy milk product that comes in a 500-milliliter carton with expiration dates between July 1 and 7 turned out to have a problem. Stop selling them immediately and dispose of all stock," the message said.
However, because such information only popped up on the counter screens, customers had no way to know of the issue. Part-time workers at GS25 stores were also not properly informed and some sold the milk during the prior three days.
Snoopy milk is GS25's product that comes in four flavors: banana, chocolate, coffee and strawberry. Only the banana-flavored milk was tainted.
According to the company, its Snoopy milk products are manufactured by Dongwon Food & Beverages and GS Retail took instant action right after its partner firm notified it of the issue.
"We assume that the milk product was tainted during processing and we are trying to figure out what the problem is. We will compensate our customers who have already suffered after they drank it," a GS Retail official said.
The company posted a message apologizing for the issue on its official website on Tuesday, but it did not issue a recall of the problematic product.
"We are still studying what really affected the milk to get tainted even though it did not exceed the expiration date. We will notify our customers on the issue once our internal investigation finds out the exact cause," the official added.
