'Chinese Cabbage' Disguised as Domestic... 180 Cases of Origin Labeling Violations Detected

Nonggwanwon criminally charged 129 sites for false labeling, fined 15 million KRW for 51 sites without labeling

A kimchi manufacturing company located in Iksan-si, Jeonbuk, was caught falsely labeling the origin of cabbage in kimchi as domestic while mixing Chinese cabbage with domestic cabbage to produce and sell napa cabbage kimchi. The National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service (NAQS) has filed criminal charges against the company.

NAQS announced on the 11th that from October 10th this year to the 6th of last month, during a 57-day period coinciding with the kimchi-making season, they conducted a comprehensive inspection of origin labeling focusing on napa cabbage kimchi and kimchi-making vegetables, which see increased distribution, and detected violations at 180 locations (185 items).

The Agricultural Quality Management Service is conducting origin labeling inspections on napa cabbage kimchi manufacturers.

During this comprehensive inspection period, NAQS deployed 12,940 special judicial police officers and honorary monitors to inspect 48,990 locations including kimchi-making vegetables and kimchi importers, distributors, manufacturers and sellers (including online sales), and general restaurants. The focus was on acts such as selling foreign products disguised as domestic or falsely marketing products as specialty items from famous domestic regions.

In particular, this crackdown started earlier than the previous year due to increased imports of fresh cabbage and extended the inspection period by 24 days. By utilizing distribution history information of imported agricultural and livestock products from customs clearance to distribution and consumption stages, NAQS intensified inspections on suspected origin mislabeling companies, resulting in 48 more locations being caught compared to the previous year.

The violations by business type were as follows: general restaurants (143 locations), manufacturers (15 locations), rest area restaurants (6 locations), and online sales companies (5 locations). The items most frequently violated were napa cabbage kimchi (143 cases), red pepper powder (20 cases), napa cabbage (13 cases), dried red pepper (1 case), and minced garlic (1 case).

Among the detected companies, 129 companies with false labeling were criminally charged, and 51 companies caught for non-labeling were fined a total of 15.15 million KRW.

Park Seong-woo, head of NAQS, stated, "Considering households that make kimchi late this year, we will continue monitoring until the end of the year," and urged, "If you suspect the origin of kimchi-making vegetables or other agricultural and livestock products when purchasing, please report it through the Illegal Distribution Reporting Center or the NAQS website."