[Choi Go-un, Correspondent / Beijing: This is the bullfrog dish I had delivered just a moment ago. It is a relatively easy ingredient to find in China, and it is estimated that there are over 40,000 restaurants specializing in bullfrogs nationwide.]

How are bullfrogs supplied to restaurants raised?

An in-depth reporting team from a Chinese media outlet commissioned tests on edible bullfrogs purchased from several online shopping malls.

As a result, antibiotics exceeding China's legal limits were detected in multiple samples.

In severe cases, the levels exceeded the limit by five times, and even veterinary drugs banned from use due to concerns over causing cancer or birth defects were found.

This is because excessive amounts of antibiotics were poured into crowded breeding farms to prevent the frogs from dying off.

[Bullfrog Processing Company: If three or four of them get sick? If you don't clear them out by that evening, they all die within two or three days. Because the density of bullfrogs is so high, it spreads quickly.]

Regulations requiring antibiotic residue testing before distribution proved useless.

To deceive authorities, samples free of antibiotics were submitted or factory reports were forged.

Young frogs were distributed to restaurants nationwide without undergoing testing at all.

[Food Company Official: Even if you buy (cheap) bullfrogs, you can just ask me for a shipping report. Then, I'll make you a document that says 'test passed'.]

China's bullfrog industry has grown by 317% over the past decade, producing about 600,000 tons last year alone.

Following the fallout from the report, Chinese authorities have halted product sales and launched investigations by commissioning sample tests, but eradicating the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in the short term seems difficult.

"Don't die," they poured it in... Bullfrog dishes also soaked in antibiotics (August 5, 2026, 8 News)

Reported by Choi Go-un | Producer: Bae Jun-hwi | Filmed by Choi Deok-hyun | Video Edited by Lee Seung-yeol | Designed by Hwang Se-yeon | Produced by SBS Digital News