"Not Domestic but Half Thai"…Famous Dakgalbi Restaurant's Betrayal '100 Million Won Fine'

[Image source = Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Eun-young] The owner of a well-known Dakgalbi restaurant in Daejeon was sentenced to prison for falsely labeling imported ingredients as domestic products.

Judge Park Jun-beom of the Daejeon District Court Criminal Division 5 sentenced Mr. A, who was tried on charges of violating the Act on the Labeling of Origin of Agricultural Products, to one year in prison with a two-year probation.

According to the legal community on the 8th, Mr. A, a man in his 30s who runs a restaurant specializing in Dakgalbi in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, wrote "Chicken is domestic" on a signboard inside the restaurant from February to August last year, but in reality, he mixed domestic and Thai chicken meat in a 5:5 ratio to prepare and sell the dishes.

It was found that Mr. A earned approximately 88 million KRW by selling 1.8 tons of Dakgalbi prepared in this manner.

From January 2017 for two and a half years, Mr. A also labeled about 3.7 tons of Chinese cabbage kimchi served as a side dish as "Cabbage domestic, chili powder Chinese."

The prosecution explained that Mr. A also requested wholesale suppliers to reduce transaction records in order to decrease the amount of mislabeled ingredients.

Judge Park explained the sentencing by stating, "There is a clear difference in public preference between domestic and imported kimchi and chicken. It is difficult to find a way to compensate the tangible and intangible damages suffered by those who trusted and visited the defendant’s restaurant."

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