Soy Sauce, Doenjang, Gochujang, and Cheonggukjang Manufacturing Industry Re-designated as Suitable Livelihood Industry

The manufacturing industries of soy sauce, doenjang, gochujang, and cheonggukjang have been re-designated as ‘livelihood-type suitable industries.’ On the 16th, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups held a review committee composed of private members to reconsider the re-designation of these four sauce manufacturing industries and made this decision.

The committee resolved to re-designate the four industries after carefully balancing the need to protect small business owners’ fragility and stability with the impact on industrial competitiveness and consumers. The livelihood-type suitable industry system, established in 2018 under the "Special Act on the Designation of Livelihood-Type Suitable Industries for Small Business Owners," aims to guarantee the survival rights of small business owners, and in principle, large corporations are prohibited from acquiring, starting, or expanding businesses related to livelihood-type suitable industries for five years.

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Amid stagnation in growth due to a decline in domestic consumption, the sauce manufacturing industry has a high proportion of small business owners and increasing fragility, and has been designated as a livelihood-type suitable industry since 2020, with the designation period expiring at the end of last year. The committee discussed regulatory improvements based on recent market changes and opinions from various sectors, aiming to guarantee the management autonomy of large corporations while securing the competitiveness of small business owners.

Accordingly, the regulated items and scope remain the same as in the previous designation, limited to large-capacity (8ℓ·kg or more) products mainly operated by small business owners. Due to the increase in demand for K-Food, traditional sauces and various seasoning sauces have achieved record-high export volumes, maintaining growth, so from the perspective of industrial competitiveness, new product development and exports such as sauces and mixed pastes are excluded from regulation.

The method of regulating large corporations will be significantly reformed. First, production method changes within the total allowable shipment volume for large corporations will be permitted to partially ease regulations. Many large corporations also agree on the need to expand small business owners’ domestic market share, so the allowable shipment volume for regulated products will be lowered. A new exception rule allowing unlimited OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) volumes supplied to small business owners has also been introduced. This is to encourage investment by large corporations and enable capable small business owners to sustain growth.

For the cheonggukjang manufacturing industry, natto, mainly produced by large corporations, is excluded from regulation, and the existing regulatory method will be maintained, allowing large corporations to produce and sell unlimited OEM volumes supplied by small and medium-sized enterprises and small business owners.

Kim Woo-sun, Director of the Win-Win Cooperation Policy Division at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, stated, “We will actively consider applying the new shipment volume regulation method to other livelihood-type suitable industries,” and added, “We will continue to devise various policies to support small business owners facing difficulties.”

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