Korea’s Food and Drug Administration said today (Monday) that it would investigate fastfood chains over suspicions that their food could contain the banned dye Sudan 1, the Korea Times reports.
The KFDA said it would take samples from the chains, including KFC Korea, Popeyes, Lotteria and BBQ.
The KFDA has decided to investigate although the dye has never been detected in food here, a KFDA official said.
“We will conduct tests on chili-flavoured menu items of fastfood chains as we can’t rule out the possibility,” said Rhim Gi-sub, general director of the food safety bureau at the KFDA. “We will first collect samples from fast food chains with a high probability of contamination.”
Rhim said the KFDA would decide whether to expand the scope of the investigation to other food chains.
SRC Korea, which runs KFC and Burger King operations in Korea, said food at their chains used colours produced by local companies. “We have received safety tests periodically from related authorities. No problem has been reported,”’ a company official said.
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