Awarded the Top Excellence Award for 7 Consecutive Years in the Comprehensive Evaluation of Food Hygiene and Policy Across All Seoul Districts
Contributing to the Improvement of Food Service Hygiene Standards and the Creation of a Safe Dining Environment to Enhance Residents' Health
Gwanak-gu (Mayor Park Jun-hee) was honored with the Grand Prize in the '2024 Comprehensive Evaluation of Food Hygiene and Policy' on the 19th.
The comprehensive food hygiene evaluation is a system that annually evaluates food hygiene and policy areas such as food safety management infrastructure and food service establishment management across Seoul's 25 autonomous districts, selecting and motivating outstanding districts.
The district swept awards for seven consecutive years, receiving the Grand Prize in 2018, Excellence Awards from 2019 to 2023, and again the Grand Prize in 2024.
This year's evaluation selected excellent institutions based on 21 detailed indicators across seven categories.
The district achieved good results by receiving consistently high scores in various indicators such as management of food service establishments including designation under the restaurant hygiene rating system, improvement of dietary habits like eating less salty and less sweet, and citizen administrative services.
First, with the youth population accounting for 41% of the local population, ranking first nationwide, and single-person youth households making up 61% of all single-person households in the area, the district is fully committed to creating a hygienic and safe food environment in restaurants, tailored to the region's increasing diverse food dining rates.
In particular, the district has promoted the 'Kitchen Environment Improvement Project' targeting small-scale restaurants under 100㎡ among general restaurants, easing the economic burden on business owners and creating a pleasant kitchen environment, which has received great responses from both customers visiting the restaurants and the business owners.
This year, the district selected 34 small restaurants and supported improvements in kitchen ventilation facilities (including hoods, ducts, and exhaust fans) and provided hygiene-tailored consulting.
With this Grand Prize award, the district secured an incentive project fund of 30 million KRW.
The district plans to use this fund for policies to improve food hygiene levels and support hygiene supplies for voluntarily practicing establishments in food culture improvement projects, such as local model restaurants, establishments designated under the hygiene rating system, and businesses participating in the food portion reduction project.
Park Jun-hee, Mayor of Gwanak-gu, said, "I thank the business owners who voluntarily comply with food hygiene requirements despite the difficult conditions in the food service industry due to the prolonged economic downturn," and added, "Going forward, the district will actively strive to create a safe dining environment through various food hygiene policies aligned with dining consumption trends."
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