The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) announced on the 21st that it will double the inspection volume of illegal overseas direct purchase food this year compared to last year. This measure comes in response to the sharp increase in food purchases through overseas direct buying, with numerous harmful ingredients, such as medications and drugs, detected in these products.
The MFDS presented its vision for the year as "a world where food safety is part of everyday life" and announced the "2025 MFDS major policy implementation plan." The MFDS explained that it focuses on establishing safety policies that citizens can feel and an efficient regulatory system to respond to rapidly changing social and technological environments.
◇Strengthening monitoring of illegal overseas direct purchase food
Among the major policies the MFDS will pursue this year, the first core task in the food and drug sector is to closely monitor the online market and thoroughly inspect illegal overseas direct purchases while strictly managing items of public interest such as obesity treatments and tattoo dyes.
According to data titled 'Overseas Direct Purchase Food Hazardous Ingredients Detection Status' submitted by the MFDS to Rep. Choi Bo-yun of the ruling People Power Party during last year's parliamentary audit, the number of overseas direct purchase food transactions increased by 67% from 13.75 million in 2019 to 22.92 million in 2023. The total number of hazardous ingredient detections was 1,230 from 2020 to August 2024. By ingredient, 496 cases (40.3%) were medicinal ingredients, 441 cases (35.9%) were inedible materials, 262 cases (21.3%) were adulterated substances or similar substances, and 34 cases (2.8%) were narcotic ingredients.
The MFDS plans to expand the inspection volume of potentially hazardous overseas direct purchase food from 3,400 cases last year to 6,000 cases this year. During a business plan briefing the day before, the MFDS noted that it plans to strengthen safety inspections for suspected narcotic-containing products, foods claiming specific functions such as improving sexual function, muscle building, and weight loss, and foods frequently consumed by vulnerable health groups such as children.
The MFDS aims to establish a legal basis to block the importation of not only food but also cosmetics, quasi-drugs, and hygiene products that have been confirmed to be hazardous.
The MFDS also plans to activate an 'online illegal food and drug distribution monitoring system.' The MFDS has been using 'e-robot' for monitoring illegal online distribution and inappropriate advertising. By registering keywords, the system collects related sites through online monitoring. However, articles and posts unrelated to product sales and advertising have been collected, leading to low usage rates.
Starting this month, the MFDS began pilot operation of 'AI Cop,' an advanced version of the e-robot. It aims to operate fully in the second half of the year after the pilot operation, which will last until June.
The MFDS stated during the briefing, "We plan to implement functions to detect posts that induce inquiries through phone numbers or advertise proxy purchases, excluding online articles unrelated to narcotic sales tendencies such as papers and articles." It also noted that it has improved detection capabilities to check sales methods designed to evade detection, such as identifying fentanyl by just looking at the initial consonants like 'ㅍㅌㄴ' or analyzing text in photos or images using optical character recognition technology (OCR).
The MFDS has established a new function to quickly block and manage detected data through collaboration with the Korea Communications Standards Commission.
An MFDS official said, "We plan to inspect major products, including fever-reducing painkillers, toothpaste, and medical inhalers distributed on overseas online platforms such as AliExpress and Temu through special inspections of overseas shopping malls," and added, "In special inspections of personal transactions on social media, we will target diet and hair loss-related foods and cosmetics distributed on Instagram and YouTube."
◇Focus on managing food with a high risk of large-scale food poisoning
The MFDS has also set a goal this year of intensively managing foods that are likely to cause frequent and large-scale food poisoning to strengthen the safety base for the public.
First, it plans to focus on ensuring that kimchi manufacturing facilities properly manage the disinfection process of raw materials such as salted vegetables. In July of last year, kimchi supplied to school meals from a kimchi manufacturing facility was found to be infected with norovirus, resulting in 856 cases of illness. Currently, according to food safety management certification (HACCP) standards, only a washing process is required for kimchi raw materials, and the MFDS recommends that companies also implement a disinfection process.
The MFDS stated, "We are considering measures to mandate disinfection processes for food manufacturers supplying to group feeding places such as school meals, and it is necessary to revise HACCP standards for this purpose," adding that it aims to strengthen HACCP management by checking the health status of employees involved in manufacturing to exclude them from production work if they exhibit symptoms such as fever or diarrhea.
The MFDS will conduct a comprehensive inspection of sanitation management practices at liquid egg product manufacturing facilities and ensure compliance with storage and distribution standards for water-washed eggs that must be refrigerated. It will also implement random inspections at wholesale markets to quickly block the distribution of raw oysters contaminated with norovirus and will comprehensively check all meat processing facilities that sell meat online.
Expanding access to food safety information and addressing information utilization gaps is also one of the goals for this year. The MFDS plans to expand the 'Food QR' information-providing foods initiated last November and develop over 200 standardized food information sign language videos for companies to use.