356 Companies Caught Selling Domestic Agricultural Products as Imported During Chuseok Holiday

189 False Labeling Cases (Criminal Charges), 167 Unlabeled Cases (Fines of 51 Million KRW Imposed)

Grilled Pork Samgyeopsal (Photo by Asia Economy DB)

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Kim Hyewon] A processing company located in Gangneung-si, Gangwon Province falsely labeled the origin of gift sets made from Chinese millet and domestic soybeans and rice as domestic origin while selling them through online shopping malls. The amount of violation reached 400kg, with a violation amount of 12 million KRW.

A livestock product sales company located in Busan disguised the origin and type of meat of gift products made from U.S. beef as domestic Korean beef, and a corporation located in Haenam-gun, Jeollanam-do, consigned the sale of napa cabbage kimchi made with Chinese garlic and salt from OO Trading Company while falsely labeling the origin as domestic.

The National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service announced on the 15th that it conducted a comprehensive inspection of origin labeling for gift and ritual items, whose distribution increases during the Chuseok holiday, for 25 days from August 16 to September 9, and detected 356 violating businesses (430 cases).

During this comprehensive inspection period, the Agricultural Products Quality Management Service deployed 700 personnel, including special judicial police officers and a cyber monitoring task force. They focused on inspecting 15,517 places including manufacturers and processors of gift and ritual items, telecommunication sales companies, and agricultural and livestock product wholesalers and retailers for acts such as disguising foreign products as domestic or falsely selling them as famous local specialty products.

The main violating items were pork (137 cases), napa cabbage kimchi (60), beef (34), rice (22), tofu (21), chicken (20), and soybeans (11). The main violating business types were general restaurants (198 places), processing companies (59), meat sales companies (47), and telecommunication sales companies (20).

For 14 items under the Chuseok holiday supply stabilization measures, after pre-inspecting supply status and price trends, inspections focused on suspected violating businesses accounted for 59.8% (257 cases) of all violations. In the case of pork, violations were detected using an origin verification kit developed last year. For example, a meat sales store OO located in Seoul was caught during an inspection using the origin verification kit for falsely labeling Spanish pork loin cut for holiday japchae and sweet and sour pork as domestic origin while selling to consumers and general restaurants.

Regarding Songpyeon, a representative food of the Chuseok holiday, focused inspections on suspected manufacturing and sales companies detected 9 companies violating origin labeling of rice, black sesame, and soybeans (7 false labeling cases and 2 non-labeling cases).

The 356 companies detected this time were subject to criminal charges and fines under the "Act on the Labeling of Origin of Agricultural and Fishery Products."

Among them, 189 companies with "false labeling" were criminally charged and will face "imprisonment of up to 7 years or a fine of up to 100 million KRW" after prosecution procedures. Companies that falsely labeled origin will have their names and violation facts publicly announced for one year on the websites of the Agricultural Products Quality Management Service and the Korea Consumer Agency. The Agricultural Products Quality Management Service imposed fines totaling 51 million KRW on 167 companies detected for "non-labeling."

An Yongdeok, head of the Agricultural Products Quality Management Service, said, "We plan to continuously strengthen inspections and publicity of agricultural product origins so that consumers can purchase our agricultural products with confidence," and added, "We will do our best to ensure that consumers can trust and purchase domestic agricultural products such as napa cabbage and red pepper powder during the upcoming kimchi-making season."

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