Recall Rate for Suspended Chinese and US Imported Foods Remains in the 10% Range... Japanese Products Only 1%

Suspended Products Continue to Circulate Domestically
China and US at Over 10%, Japan at Only 1%

It has been found that among imported food products, only 13% are actually recalled even when sales are suspended due to the detection of foreign substances. In particular, the recall rate for Japanese food products is less than 1%, prompting calls for strengthened safety management. According to data received by Seo Mihwa, a member of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee from the Democratic Party, from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, a total of 343 recall and disposal cases were recorded for non-compliant imported food products distributed from 2020 to June of this year.

Among imported food products in South Korea, only 13% are actually recalled even when sales are suspended due to foreign substance detection. In particular, the recall rate for Japanese food products is less than 1%, prompting calls for strengthened safety management. Asia Economy

By country, Chinese imported food products accounted for 125 cases, exceeding one-third of all recall and disposal actions, followed by the United States with 46 cases, Canada with 31 cases, and Vietnam with 25 cases. Myanmar followed with 12 cases, while Japan and Italy each had 11 cases, and Thailand had 10 cases, all exceeding 10 cases. When comparing the volume of recalled imported food products to the total imported volume subject to recall and disposal, the average recall rate stood at only 13%.

The low recall rate indicates that a significant amount of products whose sales were suspended continued to be distributed domestically. Among these eight countries, Canada had the highest recall rate at 19.3%. Italy followed at 17%, while China and the United States recorded 15.6% and 10.4%, respectively. In contrast, Japan had a recall rate of only 0.5%, making it the only country with a rate below 1%. The recall rate for Japanese health functional foods was just 0.3%. Myanmar also had a relatively low rate at 1.5%.

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Measures are needed to dramatically increase the recall rate of imported food products subject to disposal. Seo Mihwa stated, "Although the imported food market is continuously expanding, there has been no meaningful improvement in safety issues. For items and countries with repeated recalls and sales suspensions, not only should measures be taken to raise the recall rate, but preemptive management must also be significantly strengthened."

Regarding this, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety explained that it focuses collection and inspection efforts on products at the early stages of distribution, and for high-consumption foods where non-compliance continues to occur, it is shortening inspection times to ensure that non-compliant products are dealt with quickly. The ministry added that it will continue efforts to ensure that the improvement measures implemented this year are stably applied in the field of safety management so that prompt recall actions can be taken.

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