Coca-Cola Under Fire for Hiding Poisoning Incident

Park Hyong-ki

Coca-Cola Korea Bottling Company is under fire over its attempt to hide a recent poisoning incident involving its soft drinks from Korean consumers.

Police in Kwangju last Monday said a woman, identified by her last name Park, was arrested on charges of sending blackmail text messages to the cell phones of Coca-Cola Korea officials and posting articles on the company¡¯s Web site from July 1-9. The woman threatened to inject Coca-Cola drinks with poison if the company did not pay up 2 billion won.

After drinking a bottle of coke in a restaurant, a 25-year-old man fell seriously ill and was taken to a nearby hospital on Sunday. He was later moved to a larger hospital in Seoul for treatment.

With the latest episode, the soft drink company is being questioned over its corporate responsibility toward people¡¯s health value.

It is also facing harsh criticism especially from consumers for its secret and belated countermeasures.

The company had in fact carried on its crisis management by swiftly exchanging products at convenience stores in South and North Cholla Provinces where Coke officials believed poisoned drink products could be during the period of the blackmail, a Coca-Cola Korea official explained.

But they did it in a quiet manner without a single sign of warning to the consumers.

The company was actively cooperating with the police investigation, which was not opened to the public, the official claimed. Thus, all it could do was act upon it without causing a commotion while waiting for the police results.

Some owners at a convenience store said the company did not tell them the reason for the exchange, while others said the company told them it was collecting the products due to mold on the caps of bottles.

After the incident, the Coke company publicly began recalling thousands of bottles in market circulation in the Cholla region on July 11 _ the day after the woman was caught. And Coca-Cola said that it would not distribute the drink until the incident settled down.

Analysts said with poor sales performance, the company will shoulder the burden of its wounded image for the time being, but the price it will have to pay will be similar to that of CJ Food System, which was also criticized for food poisoning involving school lunch meals.