Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Trevor]

Let's face it: For all of Korea's good qualities, Koreans are not famous for their...ummm...honesty.

Here is a story in today's Herald that restaurants have been labeling cheap U.S. beef as Australian or Korean grown. (Shock! Dismay! Horror!)

You mean that Korean businesses would actually LIE to their customers? This is too much to believe.

(Korea Heral story follows).

**

315 restaurants busted for beef labeling





Prosecutors have caught 315 restaurants which violated the country-of-origin regulations on beef they served, during the recent two-month-long crackdown, officials said yesterday.

The crackdown between July 3 and Monday came amid public calls for the government to enhance its food-safety system. The calls followed public scares about mad cow disease associated with U.S. beef, which prompted a nearly three-month-long protest across the nation.

"Violations involve not only small-sized restaurants but also big top-class restaurants. Some appear to have no sense of guilt about their lies," an official said at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office.

The joint crackdown team, consisting of police, prosecutors, local self-governing authorities and food related government agencies, had looked into roughly 284,000 restaurants.

Of them, 73 places were found to have not displayed the country of origin. A total of 242 restaurants have falsely stated the country of origin, investigators said. By law, those who do not display the beef origin face fines of up to 30 million won ($27,040). Those who falsify the origin will face administrative penalties, including suspension and cancellation of their restaurant operation licenses.

By type of violations, 76 restaurants falsely said that their imported beef was Korean-produced. A total of 65 places stated that their U.S. beef was Australian-grown. In some cases, owners lied to customers that their low-quality beef was premium Korean-native beef.

Prosecutors are beefing up their clampdown by mobilizing various investigation measures. Prosecutors have recently expanded the monitoring staff from the current 400 to 1,000 people.

Beginning from October, the National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service will offer a monetary reward of up to 2 million won for those who report the food-labeling violation cases or help capture the offenders.


By Song Sang-ho


([email protected])









2008.09.12

[I_Am_The_Kiwi]

OMG they bought cheap US beef and labelled it as Aussie beef or Hanwoo....what a surprise.


Didnt see this coming!!!!

[Woden]

400 restaurants out of a total of nearly 300,000 is hardly surprising. That is a pretty good statistic actually. Well done to Koreans for being more honest than most restaurateurs back home.

[caniff]

284,000 restaurants inspected......monitoring staff = 400 people.....

Yeah, right.

[Trevor]

My question is, how can you tell U.S. beef from other beef after it has been labeled(or mislabeled)?

Does American beef whistle 'Yankee Doodle' when you inspect it?

[billybrobby]

It's an interesting issue.

On the one hand the beef issue wouldn't have been so explosive if people could have said, "Well, if you don't trust US beef don't eat it." But the obvious response to that was "People will pass off US beef as Korean beef." And of course that turned out to be true. Koreans are well aware that Korea is full of scammers. So these shady restaurateurs have caused us all a lot of problems. What a bunch of dicks.

Other the other hand, it's got to be incredibly tempting to use US beef. It's safe, tastes fine. Really, what's the harm? If I were a restaurateur, I'd do it too, if I could get away with it. Those restaurateurs are good people

What is the lesson? That restaurateur has no N.