If you plan to buy stringed-cheese the next time you go to the supermarket, you may want to check that it wasn't made in Omsk.
Russia's consumer watchdog said that it will inspect an unidentified dairy factory in the Siberian city after photographs of staff members frolicking in a vat of milk used for making cheese appeared Tuesday on a popular social network site, Superomsk.ru information portal reported Wednesday.
Photographs of the "cheesy soak," which supposedly took place after a pre-New Year's staff party and involved as many five participants, were posted on the Vkontakte page of Omsk resident Artyom Romanov.
In one of the snapshots, an offender is seen brazenly holding up his shorts to the camera while sitting in the vat.
The comment, "Well, our work is actually very boring," accompanied the corresponding photo album on Romanov's page, on which he is identified as a manufacturer of stringed-cheese.
Though it is unclear whether the bathed-in product was later used to make cheese, disgusted consumers alerted the region's branch of the Federal Consumer Protection Service, which has promised to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident.
A video clip on Romanov's page that shows several people turning cheese curd in buckets on the floor with their bare hands while wearing nothing more than shorts and footwear is also likely to make interesting viewing for the inspectors.
One of the photos was posted by Vkontakte group OMSK VK [18+] with an accompanying note saying that the milk bath took place at a factory owned by Torgovy Dom Syra, or Trading House of Cheese.
A spokesman at the factory declined to comment on the report when contacted by Superomsk.ru.
Update: March 28, 9:35 p.m. — Officials from the Federal Consumer Protection Service have temporarily closed the factory belonging to Trading House of Cheese after finding serious sanitary infringements, RIA Novosti reported Friday.
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