It was found that only 6% of restaurants selected for the Michelin Guide 2024 applied for the hygiene rating system.
Seo Young-seok, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, analyzed the data submitted by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and found that although seven years have passed since the implementation of the hygiene rating system, the designation rate is less than 2%.
The hygiene rating system is a system that evaluates the hygiene status of restaurants to improve the hygiene level of restaurants and assigns hygiene grades to businesses with excellent hygiene levels. This system, which was introduced in 2017 to ensure consumer choice and prevent food poisoning, is evaluated by the Korea Food Safety Management Certification Board when a business operator applies for designation and decides whether to designate a hygiene grade.
As of the end of 2023, there are 10,061 restaurants rated according to the hygiene rating system. This is 12,936 locations compared to 3,125 in 2019, a 414% increase in designation performance in 5 years. However, the designation rate compared to the total number of restaurants is only 1.8%. Although the designation rate has increased by 4.5 times from 0.4% in 2019, Rep. Seo Young-seok points out that it is still insufficient.
When dividing applications for hygiene level designation in 2023 by business operator, out of a total of 18,180 cases, 77.9% (14,170 cases) are franchises and 22.1% (4,010 cases) are individual operators, which is an overwhelming majority of franchise restaurants. According to the status of franchise businesses announced by the Fair Trade Commission in April this year, the number of restaurant franchises in 2022 is 179,923, which is only 21.4% of the total number of restaurants under the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in the same year, and applications for franchises and individual operators in 2023. Considering that the number of designations compared to the number of cases is almost similar at 52.1% and 50%, respectively, the reason why the designation rate does not increase noticeably appears to be due to the low participation of individual workplaces.
Meanwhile, with the recent popularity of Netflix’s entertainment show ‘Black and White Chef’, the public’s interest in Michelin Guide restaurants has increased, and as of the end of September 2024, among the 232 restaurants selected in the ‘Michelin Guide 2024’, only 1 of them have applied for a hygiene rating. It was confirmed that there were 14 restaurants. 218 restaurants had never applied for hygiene rating designation.
In addition, 17 restaurants out of 176 restaurants selected for the Michelin Guide in 2023 and 2024 violated the Food Sanitation Act, and 1 restaurant out of 232 restaurants in 2024. Among the 232 restaurants selected in 2024, 19 restaurants violated the Food Sanitation Act in 2023.
Rep. Seo Young-seok said, “It is positive for the activation of the hygiene rating system that the franchise headquarters encourages franchise operators to apply for the hygiene rating system to increase hygiene levels and customer satisfaction,” and added, “No costs are incurred in the entire process of applying for the hygiene rating system.” Considering this, the government should review more active promotion and encouragement policies for individual business operators and more actively seek ways to provide detailed technical support,” he pointed out.
Lee Mi-na, Hankyung.com reporter helper@hankyung.com
