Refer Report

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety is collecting and inspecting all beef imported into Korea from Cargill, the largest meat and grain company in the United States. The inspection was belatedly initiated after fragments of lead bullets from shotguns were discovered in Cargill beef sold domestically through Costco.

According to the office of Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Yoon, a member of the National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee, on the 1st, on the 9th of last month, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety requested local food and drug administrations nationwide to collect and inspect all Cargill beef imported to Korea. As of the 20th of last month, 31 cases have been collected and are being inspected by the Gyeongin Food and Drug Administration and the Busan Food and Drug Administration. An official from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety explained to the Hankyoreh, “We are currently conducting inspections at the distribution and import customs clearance stages, but the results have not yet been compiled.”

This full-scale inspection was taken after the Hankyoreh reported that lead bullets were found in Cargill beef sold at Costco’s Yangpyeong branch last July. The bullet in question was a lead bullet from a shotgun used to chase birds on American farms, and because there was no separate metal detection procedure during the import and distribution of American beef, it ended up in the beef and ended up on the tables of domestic consumers. Under current law, the metal detection process is left to the exporting country (in this case, the United States), and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, importing companies, and sales companies have no detection obligations.

It was additionally revealed that Cargill had not received a local inspection by the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for eight years since 2016. According to the response data that Representative Kim Yoon’s office received from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety conducted an inspection of Cargill’s local business site in 2016. However, in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) conducted inspections instead, and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety was notified of the results only in paper.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety is preparing to take administrative action against company A, an import seller that imported bullet-studded beef into the country, believing that it violated the processing standards and ingredient specifications stipulated under the Livestock Products Sanitation Management Act. However, with regard to Costco, which broke down and sold beef purchased from Company A without detecting any additional metals, it stopped short of requesting “to thoroughly conduct autonomous safety management to block the contamination of foreign substances and prevent recurrence.”

Regarding this, an official from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said, “The principle is that all administrative dispositions are disposed of against the person who gave the cause. “Costco, which simply sold the beef in small portions, is not subject to disposal,” he explained. The National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee adopted Costco Korea CEO Cho Min-soo as a witness for the government audit in order to inquire about the circumstances of beef sales at the general meeting on the 30th of last month.

Rep. Kim Yoon said, “There is a need to strengthen hygiene evaluation inspections for imported food and impose foreign matter inspection obligations on businesses that import agricultural and livestock products in large quantities and sell them in small portions.”

Reporter Lim Jae-woo abbado@hani.co.kr

Source: Korean