Kimchi wars: Korean regulators find food-poisoning bacteria on Chinese imports after viral footage sparked concerns

Yersinia enterocolitica, from the same genus of bacteria as that which causes plague, was found in 15 kimchi products imported from China out of a sample of 289

Regulators carried out their inspections after troubling footage said to show a cabbage processing plant in China went viral in South Korea earlier this year

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Kimchi is often thought of as an iconic Korean food, though there have been recent social media clashes over the origins of the popular fermented vegetable dish. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 2:16pm, 19 May 2021Updated: 4:43pm, 19 May 2021

A type of bacteria from the same family of pathogens as that which causes plague has been detected by South Korean food regulators in kimchi imported from China, a move that is likely to fuel further social media clashes over the origins of the popular fermented vegetable dish.

Yersinia enterocolitica – which causes a rare form of food poisoning known as yersiniosis that the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention say kills 35 people in the US every year – was found on 15 kimchi products imported from China out of a sample of 289, Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said on Tuesday. Yersinia pestis, which causes plague, is from the same genus of bacteria.

Symptoms of yersiniosis vary by age but tend to include fever, abdominal pain that can be confused with appendicitis and bloody diarrhoea, especially in children. In rare cases, skin rashes and sepsis can result.

Yersinia enterocolitica is rod-shaped like the plague-causing yersinia pestis bacteria (pictured), to which it is related. Photo: Shutterstock

Korea’s food safety ministry said in a statement that the “substandard” imported kimchi had not made it to market as inspections were carried out as part of the customs process, adding that it had “ordered importers to send the products back to China or discard them”.

Further inspections will be carried out when products made by the Chinese companies involved are imported in future, the ministry said, with Beijing requested to take the necessary measures to improve the companies’ hygiene practices.