396 Cases of Origin Violation Detected During Lunar New Year Holiday for Deceptive Sales from 'Chinese to Domestic Products'

243 Businesses Criminally Charged for False Labeling
Fines of 44.36 Million KRW Imposed on 153 for Missing Labels

During this year's Lunar New Year holiday, food manufacturing companies that falsely labeled the origin of Chinese chili powder and salt used in napa cabbage kimchi as domestic products were caught and criminally charged.

The National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service announced on the 5th that it conducted a comprehensive inspection of origin labeling from January 6 to 24, focusing on gift and ritual items with high consumption during the Lunar New Year holiday, and detected 396 violating businesses (514 items).

Officials from the Agricultural Products Quality Management Service are inspecting the origin of products.

During this inspection period, the agency deployed special judicial police and honorary monitors to focus on manufacturers and processors of gift and ritual items, online sales companies, and agricultural and livestock wholesale and retail businesses, totaling 10,041 locations, to check for acts such as selling foreign products disguised as domestic or falsely marketing them as specialty products from famous domestic regions.

As a result, a food manufacturing company located in Daegu mixed Chinese chili powder with domestic chili powder to produce napa cabbage kimchi, and manufactured and sold napa cabbage kimchi and salted napa cabbage using Chinese salt, falsely labeling the origin of the chili powder and salt as domestic. Additionally, a restaurant in Chuncheon, Gangwon, sold pork wraps made with U.S. pork, falsely claiming them as domestic.

Among the detected companies, 243 that committed false labeling were criminally charged (with penalties of up to 7 years imprisonment or fines up to 100 million KRW) and will be investigated internally before being referred to the prosecution. For 153 companies caught without labeling, fines totaling 44.36 million KRW were imposed.

Park Seong-woo, head of the National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service, stated, "We will continue to strengthen promotion and inspection of agricultural product origin labeling, and in the upcoming March, we plan to inspect origin labeling on delivery apps and other online sales platforms to ensure proper labeling." He added, "If there is no origin labeling or if false labeling is suspected, please report it via phone or through the agency’s website."