According to a Korea National Health & Nutrition Examination Survey announced by the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention, a segment of Korea’s general population is eating meals outside the home on a daily basis. This amounts to 31.7% of the population, an increase of 6.5% from last year. This means that about one third of Korean people are eating out at restaurants at least once a day. Also, GMarket (Electronic Commerce Company) conducted a survey of the reasons for dining out with 10,902 smartphone users. Their replies ranged from “It is cheaper than home cooked meals”, “I do not want to cook myself”, to “home cooked meals create a lot of food waste”. Whatever the reasons are, there is a large portion of society that continuously eat their daily meals in restaurants. However, if you found out that many of your favorite restaurant’s food was unsanitary, or the owners managed the restaurants fraudulently, do you really think you can truly enjoy eating food in those restaurants again?

A MBC program, Bulmanzero-UP disclosed the truth about a famous eel restaurant. They stated that the kitchen and kitchen utensils were not very sanitary; there were spiders in the food area; and there was a dirty residue on the plates. When they washed the dishes, they didn’t use any soap cleanser and cleaned using only water. The restaurant employer explained “It’s because of part time workers who didn’t clean utensils properly.” Furthermore, there were flies in the kitchen, and a broken drain was stinking up the whole area. The owner seemed to evade his responsibility for this deplorable situation. These terrible conditions shocked the viewers to the realities of some eating establishments.

How about that coffee franchise that always seems so luxurious and clean? An ‘A’ coffee franchise in Ulsan was using a sweet ingredients’ bottle in which the cap was full of ants and other insects. Hygiene is a very important aspect to take into consideration when eating out or drinking coffee in restaurants. Some coffee franchises as well as ‘A’ franchise were also only seemingly clean. There were used coffee grounds inside of the coffee machines, and this was suitable conditions for cockroaches to live inside the coffee machines. Consumers were spending a lot of money drinking coffee brewed with dirty grounds.

Is it okay to believe that restaurants or food enterprises are using fresh ingredients? There was a report about Dongsuh food that had the slogan; ‘good morning, good thinking”. Ironically, it was ruining our good morning. Dongsuh food made cereals mixed with contaminated cereals containing the colon bacillus group and sold them 12 times from April, 2012 to May, 2013. The important thing is that Dongsuh mixed cereals and sold them even though they knew the cereals had the colon bacillus group. “Through this investigation, we hold them directly responsible for their dishonest behavior in their food production process, in their pursuit of profit. A process that is detrimental to the health and welfare of all concerned citizens. After this incident, a police officer was quoted as saying “So we hope to bring an awareness of safety.”  

Another eel restaurant reported by ‘Bulmanzero-UP’ said they only used domestic Pungcheon eels. In fact they, however, were using cheap eels bought from the black market. Also, there were many eel restaurants claiming that their eels were domestic when in fact they came from China. Instead of apologizing, restaurant owners took a shameless stand and said “We didn’t sell Chinese eels. We just kept them in our fish tank, so there isn’t a problem.”

In addition, there were many restaurants reusing food. The Ministry of Health & Welfare allows reusing leftovers but that doesn’t mean every kind of leftover is allowed to be reused. Restaurants can possibly reuse food ingredients in specific cases. Those cases include when leftovers have remained intact. They can be reused when they are washed, when they haven’t been peeled, and when they have been put in a container with a cover. But some restaurants break the law and reuse whatever they want. ‘KBS Good Morning Korea’ did an amylase test on side dishes in order to identify whether the restaurant reused the side dish or not. The test was conducted on 4 restaurants and surprisingly amylase was found in all of four restaurant’s dishes. What was worse, three of the dishes had colon bacillus which causes food poisoning.

Well-known pizza enterprises such as Pizza School, Pizza Maru, 59Pizza, Nanta5000, Pizzagiga, and Super Giant Pizza were prosecuted without detention for their false indication of ingredients. They were selling pizza using fake cheese made with food additives. Cheese is normally made from fermented milk, but because of the high cost of milk, these enterprises used fake cheese which included food additives. And they advertised that they were using 100% natural cheese. Besides pizza, there are many other popular foods served with cheese, like cheese back ribs and cheese Gopchang. There could many restaurants using fake cheese among those selling these kinds of food.

As you have read, some restaurant’s owners behave unconscientiously, claiming magnificent food, yet cheating the consumers. Consumer’s health is threatened by this kind of unacceptable behavior. Restaurant owners also state they have reasons for this type of behavior. They claim “Consumers leave a lot of food”; “The ingredients of the main menu are seasonal. It is hard to supply it all the time. So we just substitute it with foreign ingredients.” Of course it is important for businessmen to make a profit, however, having a conscientious attitude, using fresh ingredients and having a clean cooking environment is much more important. This honest behavior is the answer to gain the trust of consumers who eat out and believe the food is produced in a sanitary manner and is authentic. Conducting your restaurant business in this manner is the best formula for gaining the trust and loyalty of consumers as well as producing profits.