Inspectors from the origin labeling enforcement unit check livestock product labeling at a retail outlet during a special summer crackdown. [National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service]
Inspectors from the origin labeling enforcement unit check livestock product labeling at a retail outlet during a special summer crackdown. [National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service]

Dozens of businesses that mislabeled foreign livestock products as domestic or failed to display country-of-origin information were caught exploiting a surge in meat consumption during the summer vacation season. Violations ranged from a restaurant selling gomtang — a Korean beef bone soup — made with Australian beef while labeling it as domestic hanwoo, to butcher shops passing off imported samgyeopsal as Korean-raised pork.

The National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service announced Sunday it had found 119 violations across 106 businesses during a concentrated crackdown on livestock origin labeling conducted from July 15 to July 31.

The crackdown targeted livestock retailers, meat manufacturing and processing businesses, restaurants and butcher shops near summer resort areas, online shopping platforms and food delivery apps. Inspectors focused on businesses that relabeled foreign livestock products as domestic, used confusing or disguised origin markings, or displayed no origin information at all.

By product, pork accounted for the most violations at 82 cases, followed by beef at 15, chicken at 12, duck at 7, goat at 2 and lamb at 1. By business type, general restaurants led with 66 cases, followed by meat retailers at 20, meat cutting and processing operations at 3, meat product manufacturers at 2 and meat distributors at 2.

For online shopping platforms and delivery apps, the agency's in-house cyber enforcement unit conducted advance monitoring before dispatching inspectors to businesses suspected of violations. For pork, field detection kits capable of identifying origin on the spot were used to improve enforcement efficiency.

Among the notable cases, a restaurant in the Jeonnam-Gwangju integrated special city cooked gomtang and doganitang — a cartilage soup — using Australian beef brisket, Mexican beef trotters and American beef tendon while labeling all of it as domestic hanwoo. The violation involved 5,170 kilograms of meat worth 476 million won ($335,000).

Also in the Jeonnam-Gwangju integrated special city, a meat retailer processed 1,500 kilograms of frozen Austrian samgyeopsal into shaved pork slices and sold 35 million won worth labeled as domestic. A meat retailer in Gyeonggi Province was caught selling 400 kilograms of Canadian samgyeopsal and pork neck without any origin labeling, passing it off as domestic.

A restaurant in South Chungcheong Province listed Australian goat meat on its menu as "domestic, Australian or New Zealand origin" — a deliberately confusing label — with violations totaling 88.7 million won. A buffet restaurant in North Jeolla Province labeled a poke dish made with Chinese smoked duck as domestic, and a restaurant in Gangwon Province received a fine for displaying no origin information on Australian lamb.

Of the businesses caught, 53 that falsely labeled foreign livestock products as domestic or otherwise misrepresented their origin were referred for criminal charges, while the other 53 that failed to display origin information were collectively fined 12 million won.

Kim Cheol, head of the agency, said it would continue to monitor origin labeling for livestock products as imports grow and consumption expands. "In September, we plan to conduct an intensive inspection of fraudulent origin labeling on agricultural and food products sold as chuseok gifts and ritual offerings," he said.


adastra@heraldcorp.com