Seoul City Housewife Inspectors Crack Down on 13 Butcher Shops Selling Fake Hanwoo... 669 Locations Under Planned Inspection

Seoul City-Hanwoo Association Business Agreement: 31 Housewives as Mystery Shoppers Active Monthly in First Half

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] Seoul City announced on the 29th that in the first half of this year, 31 housewives acting as ‘mystery shoppers’ inspected 669 butcher shops in marts and markets, uncovering 13 cases of ‘Hanwoo counterfeit sales’.

The mystery shoppers are part of the Livestock Product Safety Guardians, currently operating with 31 members selected mainly from among 108 citizen honorary inspectors who have extensive knowledge or purchasing experience of Hanwoo. They carry out their activities after learning Hanwoo purchasing tips and inspection precautions.

The Seoul Livestock Product Safety Guardians visited 669 Hanwoo sales outlets over six months, verifying Hanwoo status through verbal confirmation or labels, then purchasing meat and conducting Hanwoo verification tests (genetic tests) at the Seoul Institute of Health and Environment’s Animal Hygiene Laboratory.

For outlets that were determined not to be selling Hanwoo through genetic testing, officials including livestock product inspectors (veterinarians) with investigative authority and housewives revisited to reconfirm the origin and type of meat, conducting a joint public-private investigation process that led to the detection of violations.

Among the 13 outlets caught in the first half of this year, 5 were selling imported beef such as Australian or American beef disguised as Hanwoo, and 8 were selling domestic beef (Yukwoo) disguised as Hanwoo.

By sales location, 5 were butcher shops in residential areas, 4 were stores in traditional markets, and 4 were small to medium-sized marts. Seoul City analyzed that intentional and sophisticated fraudulent sales activities by sellers are occurring at butcher shops easily accessed by ordinary citizens, such as storing imported beef without origin labeling and falsely labeling it as Hanwoo for sale.

Seoul City took strong administrative actions such as prosecution or business suspension against violating outlets based on the Food Labeling and Advertising Act and the Act on the Labeling of Origin of Agricultural and Fishery Products. Last year, Seoul City also visited 1,158 outlets to establish a preventive hygiene monitoring system, detecting 23 violations and taking prosecution and business suspension measures.

Park Yumi, Director of the Seoul City Citizen Health Bureau, said, “Due to COVID-19, rather than face-to-face crackdowns, housewives, who are the main purchasers of livestock products, actively participated in this planned inspection, enabling enforcement that meets consumer expectations.” She added, “Going forward, Seoul City will strengthen cooperation with related organizations such as the National Hanwoo Association to eliminate violating outlets and enhance efforts to protect our livestock products.”