MFDS Conducts Intensive Inspections on Salad and Sandwich Delivery Restaurants

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced on the 31st that it will conduct intensive inspections from the 6th to the 10th of next month targeting a total of about 2,750 establishments such as restaurants delivering salads and sandwiches.

Since 2021, the Ministry has been conducting special quarterly inspections selecting representative delivery foods such as chicken, pizza, and bunsik to strengthen safety management of the delivery food market, which is growing in size. The delivery food market size increased from 17.3 trillion won in 2020 to 26 trillion won last year. This year, inspections were conducted in the first quarter targeting restaurants delivering Asian dishes such as malatang and yangkkochi, in the second quarter targeting Asian dishes such as rice noodles and sushi, and in the third quarter targeting restaurants delivering bunsik such as gimbap.

[Photo unrelated to the article]

In the fourth quarter, restaurants specializing in delivering salads and sandwiches will be selected as inspection targets, and in order to prevent food safety accidents such as food poisoning, restaurants that prepare and deliver or sell food in large quantities around industrial complexes will also be included in the inspection targets.

The main inspection items include compliance with hygienic management standards of kitchens and cooking facilities, storage and use of raw materials past their expiration (distribution) date, compliance with preservation and storage standards of ingredients, compliance with facility standards to prevent foreign substances (such as rats and pests) in the workplace, and whether health checkups, hygiene caps, and masks are worn.

Along with the inspections, about 100 randomly collected cooked food samples will be tested for food poisoning bacteria.

As a result of inspecting a total of 8,888 delivery food establishments from the first to third quarters this year, 96 places (about 1.08%) were found to be in violation. The main violations were failure to conduct health checkups (54 cases), violation of hygienic handling standards (22 places), storage of products past expiration (distribution) date (11 cases), and violation of facility standards (6 places), in that order.

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