Subsidiary 'Fresh Serve Osan Factory'
Obtains 'Smart HACCP' Certification Following HACCP Approval
GS Retail's convenience store GS25 has become the first in the industry to receive smart HACCP certification for all processes prior to ready meal manufacturing.
GS Retail's ready meal specialized manufacturing subsidiary, Fresh Serve Osan Factory, announced on the 11th that it obtained smart HACCP certification from the Korea Food Safety Management Certification Institute for all processes of ready-to-eat foods (metal detection, heating, cleaning).
A Freshsub employee is inspecting the rice cooking (chiban) process certified with Smart HACCP. (Photo by GS Retail)
Smart HACCP is a comprehensive management system that digitalizes food safety information and automates critical control point monitoring by utilizing information and communication technologies (ICT) such as the Internet of Things (IoT) in food manufacturing plants, covering data collection, management, and analysis related to HACCP.
Established in 2008, Fresh Serve was the first domestic convenience store FF factory to receive HACCP certification in 2009 and has now acquired smart HACCP certification as well. Notably, during the smart HACCP certification process, it introduced a system that automatically measures the temperature of rice in the cooking process (chiban) at the fully cooked state (miban) for the first time in Korea and transmits the data in real time. IoT technology was integrated into production equipment such as rice cookers, steam pots, and cleaning machines to install smart sensors that measure and automatically record internal and external temperatures, equipment display values, residual chlorine, and other information in real time.
To achieve this, Fresh Serve held over 40 meetings with HACCP certification experts for 1 year and 3 months to establish a standard model for automatic measurement and storage of miban temperature. Real-time monitoring of all food production processes became possible, and a system was established to respond immediately in case of abnormalities.
After obtaining smart HACCP certification, GS25 launched two products on the 8th of this month: 'Beef Jjajang Rice Ball' and 'Whole Chili Fried Gimbap.' The packaging of these products features the smart HACCP certification mark along with the phrase "Produced in a smart HACCP certified factory, so you can trust and enjoy."
Kwon Young-hwan, CEO of Fresh Serve, emphasized, "As demand for cost-effective meals increases in this era of high prices, the importance of safety management for ready-to-eat foods is growing. We will continue to actively invest in automation of production facilities and infrastructure to establish a quality-centered production culture and maintain a leading role in the ready meal manufacturing sector."
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