[Inside Chodong] Food Truck Regulations Lifted After 8 Years

When someone earnestly asks for help and you make an effort to fulfill their request, only to be met with a lukewarm response, and when you express your disappointment but they retort that things turned out as desired so it should be fine, yet they scold you not to take credit for it, there is hardly anything more disheartening than that.

The case of deregulating food trucks by the Small and Medium Business Ombudsman is exactly such an example. At a regulatory improvement meeting held by the Small and Medium Business Ombudsman in August 2016, a food truck self-employed person raised a complaint, saying, "The truck is old and needs to be replaced with a new one, but if you change the vehicle, you have to first file a business closure report and then reapply for a business license, making the procedure complicated."

According to the Enforcement Rules of the Food Sanitation Act, food service businesses such as cafes or bakeries only need to file a change report if the business location or facilities change. However, the regulatory barrier for food trucks was particularly high. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) held the position that since a food truck is a combined concept of business location and facilities, changing the vehicle means changing both location and facilities, so the administrative authorities must review documents and conduct on-site inspections as if it were a new business before granting approval.

In response, the Small and Medium Business Ombudsman emphasized that changing the vehicle is not a significant change in facilities and that convenience for self-employed persons could be greatly improved simply by reinterpreting the law rather than amending it, and began persuading the MFDS.

Following the first proposal in August 2016, the Ombudsman requested improvements from the MFDS six times?in June 2018, November 2019, December 2021, August 2022, and June 2023?and after repeated negotiations with the MFDS, which repeatedly responded with "unacceptable," they finally brought about change. Since June of this year, if a truck is replaced, the business can continue by simply reporting the vehicle change without going through the closure procedure. This regulation, which could have been resolved by a mere 'guideline' from the competent ministry, was lifted after a full eight years.

When asked why it took so long, an MFDS official explained, "Since it was a matter of safety, we had no choice but to deliberate carefully." This is the achievement of the Small and Medium Business Ombudsman, who never gave up or forgot and successfully resolved the regulation.

However, the industry's response has been lukewarm. Ha Hyuk, president of the Korea Food Truck Association, gave a harsh evaluation, saying, "It is not an effective policy." Ha said, "In the past three years, fewer than 10 self-employed persons have changed their vehicles." The self-employed person who raised the complaint at the time has already left the food truck industry, and whether the procedure for vehicle replacement is complicated is no longer an important issue in food truck operations.

The food truck industry was legalized in August 2014 under the Park Geun-hye administration, and this year marks its 10th anniversary. The number of food trucks, which once increased to over 5,000 around 2015?2016 when the regulation became an issue, has decreased to about 2,000 as of September, and the estimated market size, which ranged from a minimum of 1 trillion to a maximum of 5 trillion won, has shrunk to 200 billion won. The food truck industry, once spotlighted as a low-capital startup item for ordinary people dreaming of a hit restaurant with long lines, has now lost its vitality.

The biggest challenge for the food truck industry now is securing stable business locations. Seeing an industry insider confidently say, "If there is a place to operate, increasing from 2,000 to 10,000 trucks is just a matter of time," I recall the story of the past eight years.

The core of both deregulation and support measures is effectiveness and speed. There is no time to blame anyone. We hope the timing of policy implementation will not be missed.

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