Food Service Industry Prioritizes Hygiene and Safety Again This Year by Strengthening Quality Control

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Hyewon] Since the beginning of the year, hygiene issues at franchise companies have surfaced, increasing consumer distrust in the dining industry. In response, the industry as a whole is seeking various measures to meet the heightened consumer expectations for hygiene and safety after COVID-19 by strengthening QSC (Quality, Service, Cleanliness) inspection processes.

According to the industry on the 19th, Hansot is strengthening hygiene and quality management at its 750 franchise stores nationwide through the ‘Mystery Shopper’ system. Mystery Shopper is a compound word of ‘Mystery’ and ‘Shopper,’ where evaluators pose as customers to assess quality and service. They identify the current state of service and propose improvements.

Hansot plans to objectively and thoroughly check franchise store operations through Mystery Shoppers composed of external experts over approximately 12 weeks, once in the first half and once in the second half of this year. Beyond simply evaluating stores, stores scoring below a certain standard after receiving results will undergo a continuous correction and re-inspection process in three stages to enhance quality and hygiene. In particular, a checklist for each QSC item from the consumer’s perspective is prepared, and quality is evaluated to promptly address any inconveniences.

Kyochon Chicken is focusing on strengthening QSC through an online education program tailored to the non-face-to-face trend. They launched the franchise education application ‘Kyochon e-Academy,’ providing various educational content so that new and existing franchise owners and employees can freely learn the necessary training anytime and anywhere without spatial or temporal constraints through non-face-to-face education. To this end, a studio has been established at the Education R&D Center to accelerate the production of diverse educational videos.

Momstouch is establishing and advancing the ‘Integrated Quality and Hygiene Management (M-QMS)’ process this year, which proactively manages quality and hygiene at all stages from raw material production to menu sales. This system standardizes and manages the entire value chain. First, regular and irregular quality and hygiene inspections of partner companies are strengthened to assign internal hygiene grades, and a differentiated management system by hygiene grade is newly introduced to continuously supervise product quality and safety. The hygiene verification system at stores is also being expanded to four stages. The consumer claim response system has been restructured to enable faster responses from cause investigation to recurrence prevention and improvement measures.

Ediya Coffee is participating in the Food and Drug Safety Ministry’s restaurant hygiene rating system to strengthen hygiene management at stores nationwide. Last year, over 700 stores newly acquired hygiene ratings, and as of November of the same year, 2,362 stores nationwide obtained restaurant hygiene ratings, making it the franchise with the most hygiene-certified stores in Korea. The restaurant hygiene rating system, introduced by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in May 2017, evaluates the hygiene management level of general restaurants, snack bars, and bakeries nationwide and awards three grades?‘Excellent,’ ‘Good,’ and ‘Fair’?only to outstanding establishments.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.