'Soaring Dining Prices' Franchise Price Disclosure... Page 'Not Responding'

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Son Seonhee] The government decided to disclose the prices of representative menu items from major franchise brands starting from the 23rd to stabilize soaring dining-out prices, but an error is occurring on the actual page.

On the morning of the 23rd, the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation (aT) added a new menu called "Dining Franchise Price Trends" on its agricultural and fishery distribution information website, along with a related popup notice. However, clicking on the menu or the popup window results in an error, making access impossible.

Earlier, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs planned to disclose prices for a total of 12 items starting from that day, including 4 ministry-managed items such as porridge, gimbap, hamburgers, and chicken, and 8 essential livelihood items such as tteokbokki, pizza, coffee, jajangmyeon, samgyeopsal, pork ribs, galbitang, and seolleongtang. For price disclosure, a total of 62 major franchise brands were selected for each item, with 15 stores per brand sampled (10 in the metropolitan area, 5 in other regions).

The purpose is to allow consumers to compare and choose by disclosing the main menu prices of dining franchise companies that consumers frequently visit. It also aims to enable consumers to immediately recognize if companies raise prices.

However, service errors have occurred from the first day of implementation, causing setbacks to the policy. Additionally, the menu prices of major franchise companies that the government intends to disclose are already publicly available to consumers and can be found through simple internet searches, raising questions about the policy’s effectiveness. In fact, the government’s method of price investigation is also through the official websites of the respective franchise brands.

Another website where the government planned to disclose price information, "The Dining" website, has uploaded a document titled "Major Dining Franchise Price Trends for the 3rd Week of February 2022." However, instead of allowing users to check price disclosures directly on the internet page, they must download the document to view the contents, which is inconvenient. This method is criticized for causing more inconvenience than a simple internet search and failing to fulfill the purpose of "disclosure."

Moreover, as raw material prices such as grains have recently risen, there are limits to suppressing final consumer price increases, leading to complaints from companies.

Moon Ji-in, head of the Dining Industry Promotion Division at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, explained, "Since dining-out prices have risen significantly, the intention is to gather and show prices from various franchises for price-sensitive items so that consumers can compare them."

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