[Kim Taemin's Food and Medicine Story] Why 'Frog Side Dish' Was Served to Children Who Are Not Even Foxes

After the "Gaeguri Kimchi" Incident
Inspection of School Meal Kimchi Suppliers
Once Again, Only Superficial Administration

Unending Food Incidents
The Root Cause Is Poor HACCP
Annual Post-Management Checks Are Neglected

To Lower Barriers for Small Businesses
The Small-Scale HACCP System Was Hastily Created
Poor Management Foreseen Due to Lack of Fundamental Solutions

“Fox, fox, what are you doing?”, “Eating”, “What side dish?”, “Frog side dish.” A line from a childhood song has become a reality for our children attending school. Why are frog side dishes continuously served to children? And why are they especially found in kimchi? Currently, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, local governments, and education offices are inspecting hundreds of food manufacturing and processing businesses, including those supplying kimchi to school meals, but there is little expectation that the cause will be found. In reality, the products have long been manufactured and supplied, so visiting the site would be a futile effort. Ultimately, it is just another showy administrative act to promote that they are working hard.

When food incidents occur or are reported in the media, administrative officials such as those from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety rush to crack down and conduct administrative investigations, but the results are unsatisfactory. Recently, after various incidents such as the “defective sundae incident” and the “unsanitary kimchi by a food master incident” were reported, the Ministry visited the sites and investigated, but no proper enforcement was carried out. The most they did was impose fines or require improvements to the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) system. Probably, the companies reported are still producing and selling products or have hired large law firms to wait for consumers to forget while stalling for time. And this “frog kimchi” incident is just a problem that has persisted for over a decade, with the authorities showing no fundamental intention to resolve it. They are merely waiting for it to be erased from the public’s mind as soon as possible.

The root cause of all food incidents now boils down to inadequate HACCP. According to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, products from food companies operating HACCP, which removes hazards through basic hygiene management in advance, should be nearly perfect, and since the Korea Food Safety Management Certification Institute and local food and drug safety offices conduct annual post-management, there should be no place for defective food to take root. However, the reality is completely the opposite. When food accidents occur or are reported, the companies involved almost always have HACCP certification, and some even received a post-management suitability judgment just before the incident. The reason is simple: the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, which oversees HACCP as the food safety administrative authority, does not acknowledge the lack of management capacity. They still issue certifications indiscriminately, even creating a small-scale HACCP system for quantitative expansion, and instill a mistaken belief among operators that passing the superficial annual post-management inspection is sufficient. Since they only need to get through the post-management day, they do not pay proper attention to regular management.

The number of companies whose HACCP certification is revoked due to incidents is very few each year. The reason is that the more revocations occur, the more administrative lawsuits increase, and it appears that the Korea Food Safety Management Certification Institute would have to admit its own poor certification issuance, so they are cautious about revoking certifications. In fact, if a company is deemed non-compliant, it can voluntarily return the certification and reapply to obtain it again. Under these circumstances, food companies’ trust in the HACCP system is inevitably very low, and they probably regard it merely as a formality.

In the case of kimchi, which has recently been problematic, HACCP is a mandatory application item. The meaning of mandatory application items is that production itself becomes impossible without HACCP certification. In response to criticism that this creates a barrier to new entrants, the hastily created system is the small-scale HACCP. This system significantly reduces the standards to be followed to accommodate small businesses. The point is not to oppose the system itself but to highlight the fundamental problem. Because of this approach, the original purpose of the system is nullified, and poor management is inevitable. Currently, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and the Korea Food Safety Management Certification Institute lack the capacity to manage the tens of thousands of HACCP-applied businesses scattered nationwide. With only one annual visit and the current inadequate system, they can never resolve the continuous production of defective products by HACCP-certified companies. We must start by acknowledging this reality. And now, important matters should be included in the Food Sanitation Act and other laws, and the management method should be shifted from the state to the private sector for autonomy. We must abandon the stubborn belief that HACCP is the only solution and stop deceiving the public. Defective companies supplying frog side dishes should be dealt with through strong and frequent crackdowns and stricter penalties. Many experts point out that the current system cannot solve this, but the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety continues to ignore the issue. Instead, it focuses on merely expanding the scale of the Korea Food Safety Management Certification Institute.

The new head of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety emphasized internal and external communication in his inaugural speech and showed an active attitude by visiting consumer groups shortly after taking office. However, communication does not happen just by meeting and holding meetings. When mistakes are pointed out, instead of dismissing and criticizing with resistance, such experts should not be excluded from various committees but actively utilized to solve internal problems. Internal issues can never be resolved internally alone.

On the other hand, there may be claims that this “frog side dish incident” is a disgusting food issue unrelated to safety, but this is a mistaken view. This problem should be seen as a facet of poor HACCP management. Although the industry is currently struggling due to COVID-19, interest rate hikes, rapid exchange rate fluctuations, and rising labor costs, no excuse can take precedence over safety for operators manufacturing food consumed by the public. The frog side dish issue is not just a simple safety problem. Our children, burdened with excessive academic workloads, have their only proper meal opportunity during the lunch provided at school. Causing children to develop aversion to school meals or food is very concerning when adequate nutrition is necessary. Furthermore, the mental damage our children suffered in this incident must be compensated by the responsible company to sound a warning so that future school meal suppliers exercise greater caution.

Lawyer, Food Sanitation Law Research Institute