The National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service announced on the 13th that it will conduct a comprehensive inspection for 14 days from the 14th to the 27th to block illegal distribution of eco-friendly certified agricultural products used as gifts and ancestral rites items, such as fruits, livestock products, and traditional Korean sweets, which are expected to see increased transactions ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.
This inspection will target acts of disguising general agricultural products as eco-friendly certified products or making false or exaggerated advertisements, and will be conducted not only on large distribution companies but also on online shopping malls.
On the 7th, when department stores simultaneously began the main sales of Lunar New Year gift sets, fruit gift sets were displayed at a department store in downtown Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News
For online shopping malls, the inspection will adopt a "mystery shopper" method, where suspected violating products are directly ordered and purchased to verify whether the delivered products are certified. The mystery shopper technique involves inspectors posing as customers to purchase actual products and check their compliance, and is mainly used by corporate customer satisfaction departments or consumer organizations.
The National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service has been conducting crackdowns on illegal distribution of eco-friendly agricultural products through a self-developed automation (RPA) program since 2021 in response to the increase in online distribution. The RPA program automatically searches and extracts online products containing eco-friendly phrases that lack certification numbers or have expired validity periods. In 2024, a total of 46 fraudulent sellers were detected and punished both online and offline.
Park Sung-woo, head of the National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service, stated, "Starting this year, we plan to organize a 'Special Task Force for Eco-friendly Illegal Distribution' and conduct year-round regular inspections mainly in metropolitan areas where eco-friendly agricultural product distribution is high."
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