Gwangju Metropolitan Office of Education Ensures Hygiene and Safety of School Meals and Ingredients

Unscheduled Inspections by Special Hygiene Inspection Team... Preventive Consulting Also Conducted

The Gwangju Metropolitan Office of Education is making every effort to ensure hygiene and food ingredient safety in school meals.

On the 15th, the Gwangju Office of Education announced that, with temperatures expected to be higher than usual, the likelihood of hygiene-related incidents such as food poisoning is very high, and to prevent this in advance, special inspections and consulting will be conducted.

They plan to form a special hygiene inspection team composed of in-house experts and conduct unannounced inspections. Additionally, special summer food poisoning prevention consulting will be provided to schools vulnerable to food poisoning, such as those operating two to three meals a day and schools with low-experience food service workers.

The main inspection and consulting items include ▲ personal hygiene management of school meal workers ▲ freshness and quality of food ingredients ▲ expiration dates ▲ hygienic handling of food and cleaning and disinfection of utensils, as well as hygiene management of meal facilities.

Efforts will also be made to establish a hygienic and safe cooking environment. To reduce the high temperature and humidity in kitchens where food poisoning is likely to occur, 1.14 billion KRW will be invested this year to supply electric induction cookers to 18 schools, with plans to expand this annually. Along with this, there is a plan to replace ventilation facilities in all school kitchens by 2027.

Furthermore, the Office of Education will educate and promote to students the five major rules for preventing food poisoning and guidelines for preventing bacterial food poisoning during summer to prevent food poisoning at home. They also plan to conduct internal simulation training to strengthen on-site response capabilities in case of food poisoning incidents.

Meanwhile, concerns about the safety of food ingredients have increased recently due to Japan’s announcement of releasing contaminated nuclear wastewater. The Office of Education, in cooperation with the Gwangju Food and Drug Administration and the Gwangju Health and Environment Research Institute, will gradually expand radiation testing of food ingredients, which is currently conducted six times a year on 65 items. They also plan to increase the number of inspection items for seafood to alleviate parents’ concerns.

Jung Eun-nam, Administrative Director, said, “We will continue to conduct pre-inspections and consulting to prevent food poisoning in school meals and strengthen schools’ hygiene management capabilities. We will do our best to provide safe food ingredients free from contamination such as radiation to our children.”

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