Dead Mouse in Loaf of Bread

Dirty trick in bakery wars

Consumers were shocked to hear about a ¡°dead mouse in a loaf of bread¡± only a few days before Christmas in 2010. Around 1:45 a.m. on Dec. 23 last year, an Internet user posted a photo of bread in which a dead mouse was found, claiming that he had bought it at a Paris Baguette bakery in Pyeongtaek, Geyonggi Province.

The photo showed the bread containing a blackish object with what looked like fur and the bones of a dead animal. The photo and its story spread rapidly throughout online communities and on Twitter. However, the informant never informed Paris Baguette or the police about the rotting rodent in the loaf.

SPC Group, the Paris Baguette bakery company, issued a statement denying any wrongdoing and asked the Police Cyber Crime Investigation Team for a probe into the case. Consequently, the Suseo Police Station in Seoul began investigating the case on Dec. 24, suspecting that the informant used a stolen ID.

On Dec. 25, police identified the informant as a man with the surname Kim. He ran a Tous Les Jours bakery only about 100 m away from the Paris Baguette branch where he claimed he had bought a loaf of chestnut bread. He was suspected of creating the scenario himself. It emerged that he had told his son to buy the bread at the rival bakery.

Police on Dec. 26 sent the ¡°bread with a dead mouse¡± to the National Institute of Scientific Investigation (NISI) for analysis. A police spokesman pledged to finish investigating as soon as possible for fear of further decomposition of the substance in the bread.

Meanwhile, the informant himself admitted guilt, saying he had made the bread after putting a dead mouse in it, then used a stolen ID when he posted the photo on the Internet. The NISI also confirmed that the bread was made at Kim¡¯s own shop. Police will ask the court for an arrest warrant to detain Kim on charges of defamation and obstruction of business.

Fierce Rivalry

Kim was found to have staged the case in order to deal a blow against his rival bakery and boost his sales. But his act, on the contrary, resulted in mass consumer distrust of the entire bakery industry. As a result, bakery sales dwindled significantly on the whole.

Furthermore, as the suspect was a franchise owner of the Tous Les Jours bakery company, part of conglomerate CJ Foodville and the archrival of the Paris Baguette bakery company, SPC Group, public attention has been focused on the rivalry between these bakery giants. Some people even attributed Kim¡¯s action as a result of the fierce rivalry between them.