Ranking Chicken (랭킹닭), a seller of chicken breast products, issued a formal apology on its website on Tuesday for causing concern to customers due to a problem with the nutrition labeling of Bestik chicken breast sausages.

The issue sparked concern after a Youtuber, Neoguri Dago, who produces content related to food, uploaded a video of the sausage's nutritional analysis on Monday evening. Currently, the 8-minute long video entitled “Investigation of the Bestick sausage ingredients” has already amassed more than 500 comments with approximately 2.37 thousand views.

In the video, he revealed the actual nutritional components of the sausages were 7.9 g of carbohydrates, 3.7 g of sugars, 7.1 g of fat, 2.2 g of saturated fat, and 19.3 g of protein.

However, the nutrients listed in Bestick sausages were less than 1 g of carbohydrates, less than 1 g of sugars, 2.1 g of fat, 0.7 g of saturated fat, and 28 g of protein. Additionally, he found that the carbohydrate content was actually 8 times higher than indicated, and sugar, fat, and saturated fat were 3 to 4 times higher than indicated while the protein was 9 g less than the indicated value.

The Bestick sausage is a popular low-carb, high-protein food that has already sold 10 million units. As many consumers have been using the product for body-building purposes, the analysis is quite shocking. Many earlier videos can be seen of fitness enthusiasts enjoying the product.

Some of the top comments on the video read, “It’s too late to be sorry now,” Others voiced their distrust in other products, “All products, not just this product, must be thoroughly investigated, and a nutritional component certification system should be required.”

In response to customers’ dissatisfaction, a Ranking Chicken official responded, “There have been many inquiries about the nutritional content of the Bestick chicken breast sausage. We have immediately stopped selling while asking the manufacturer to verify the facts and improve it quickly.”

The notice went on to say, “We feel responsible for this because of the lack of supervision of the products we sell and sincerely apologize for worrying our customers due to this problem.”

The company further expressed its plan to conduct a full investigation of all products sold within a month to prevent the recurrence of such an incident in the future. They added, “We will also periodically update the nutritional content of all our products on our detailed page to provide accurate information to our customers.”

Upon consulting with a Ministry of Food and Drug Safety official on the issue, they commented that they are currently conducting a hygiene and collection inspection on consumer complaints filed against Woongsville sausages from the Fit Cook and Bestick chicken breast sausages.

Regarding the violation of the Food Labeling and Advertising act, if some nutritional ingredients are not displayed or the actual measured value exceeds the tolerance range compared to the amount displayed, fines will be imposed in the following ways.

In the instance where at least one fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, and sodium is not displayed, a 1 million won fine is imposed. Furthermore, if the actual specific value exceeds 50 percent or falls short of the displayed amount, an additional 500,000 won will be fined. However, if the actual specific value is 20 percent or more compared to the amount displayed, another 500,000 won fine is imposed.

For first-time offenders, businesses are issued a corrective order. However, for the second violation, their businesses will be suspended for five days, and for the third violation, the business will be suspended for 10 days.

However, compared to the seriousness of the violation when concerning food products, these punishments appear weak as they will barely make a dent in sales already accrued by the company for the Bestick chicken breast products.