By Kim Eun-ji

About 2,000 cases of food products containing foreign matter were reported during the first six months of 2012, according to Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA), Wednesday.

The figure is down about 9 percent from a year earlier and down 44 percent from 2010, when the agency made it mandatory to report foreign matter in food products.

The most frequently found foreign matter cases involved insects, which numbered 863, representing 43 percent of the total. Other foreign matter were fungi, metal, plastic and glass.

Noodles came second with 381 cases, followed by coffee with 266, snacks with 164, and bread or rice cakes with 129. The foreign substances included a frog in kimchi, and cigarette butts in marine products.

The agency said it could trace sources of the foreign substance only in 17.8 percent of the total reports. About 20 percent of the cases were not inspected at all, because either the found object was lost or the buyer was unwilling to cooperate.

KFDA found, however, that the materials get in more often when the products are packaged than when they are produced or cooked.