Hwaseong-si Conducts Hygiene Management Grade Evaluation for Food Manufacturing Companies and Others

241 New and Regular Evaluation Target Businesses
Responsible Officials to Visit in Person by Year-End

Hwaseong City in Gyeonggi Province announced on the 3rd that a responsible official will directly visit food manufacturing and processing businesses as well as food additive manufacturing establishments to conduct a 'Hygiene Management Grade Evaluation' until the end of the year.

The 'Hygiene Management Grade System' is a system that evaluates the food hygiene and quality management capabilities of food and food additive manufacturers to promote efficient food hygiene management and improve the autonomous hygiene levels of businesses, thereby managing inspections and visits to businesses differently based on the evaluation.

The evaluation targets 241 businesses out of 505 establishments in the jurisdiction, excluding those certified with HACCP, including new and regular evaluation targets for this year. New evaluation targets are businesses that have been registered for food manufacturing and processing operations for more than one year, and regular evaluation targets are those for which two years have passed since the new evaluation.

The evaluation items include a total of 120 criteria such as ▲business status, scale, number of employees ▲compliance with food hygiene laws ▲product management (self-quality inspection, expiration date setting, hazardous substance management). The evaluation is conducted on a 200-point scale, and based on the score, businesses are classified as ▲self-managed businesses (151?200 points) ▲general management businesses (90?150 points) ▲focused management businesses (0?89 points). The evaluation results are individually notified to the businesses and also published on the city’s website.

According to the evaluation results, the city plans to exempt self-managed businesses from inspections and visits for two years from the evaluation date unless there are special reasons, while focused management businesses will be intensively managed with at least one hygiene inspection conducted annually.

Song Kyung-su, Director of the Hygiene Policy Division of Hwaseong City, said, "Through differentiated management of food manufacturing and processing businesses, we will raise the autonomous hygiene levels of businesses and create an environment that can provide safe and sound food."