Safety Verification of Seafood Ingredients for School Meals

Seoul Eco-friendly Distribution Center Parents Directly Participate in Thorough Inspection of Seafood School Meal Safety, Experience School Meal Sites

Inspection Team Composed of Parents and Experts Directly Visits Seafood Suppliers to Confirm Safety

Increasing Importance of Seafood Safety Recently, Direct Radiation Testing Also Conducted

On the 11th, the Seoul Eco-friendly Distribution Center visited seafood school meal ingredient supply sites together with the School Meal Inspection Team to verify and inspect the safety of the ingredients.

The ‘School Meal Inspection Team’ consists of parents from the School Meal Committee, consumer food hygiene monitors, and meal service majors, with 10 members recommended by each Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education support office participating in this event.

Additionally, 18 officials from the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education School Health Promotion Institute and Seoul city school meal departments joined the inspection.

In particular, due to the recent release of contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, interest in the safety of seafood has increased, leading to visits to seafood school meal ingredient suppliers.

At the site, the center provided the School Meal Inspection Team with detailed explanations about the meticulous safety management system for seafood in school meals. The seafood suppliers also explained their safety inspection processes, including radiation testing systems and ingredient quality control, and through Q&A sessions, helped deepen understanding of school meals.

The School Meal Inspection Team observed the inspection process using specialized radiation testing equipment operated by the supplier and directly experienced radiation testing on safety inspection samples they collected themselves.

They also toured the seafood cutting, inspection, and packaging work sites, and directly checked the hygiene conditions of the facilities, workers, and delivery vehicles.

A parent participating in the inspection team shared at a communication and empathy meeting, “Recently, there has been much concern among schools and parents about the release of radioactive contaminated water from Japan, but after visiting the supplier, hearing explanations about radiation testing, and experiencing the tests firsthand, I feel a sense of trust. I want to share this with other parents.”

Seol Seok-ho, head of the Livestock and Fisheries Meal Team at the center, stated, “As concerns about seafood safety have increased recently, we plan to continue providing opportunities to inform parents and nutrition teachers about the professionalism of the school meal safety management system. We will strive even more to dispel parents’ concerns about ingredient safety and supply safe and fresh school meal ingredients.”

Operated by the Seoul Agro-Fisheries & Food Corporation (President Moon Young-pyo), the Seoul Eco-friendly Distribution Center has been fully operational since 2010 to stably supply excellent and safe ingredients at reasonable prices to elementary, middle, and high schools in Seoul.

Currently, it supplies safe eco-friendly meal ingredients to 1,326 schools in Seoul (588 elementary schools, 274 middle schools, 160 high schools, 32 special schools, and 272 kindergartens) and is designated as a nationally certified institution for residual pesticide and heavy metal safety testing of agricultural products.

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