Sentencing of a food company representative for falsely labeling Chinese kimchi as domestic

The Gwangju District Court has sentenced the representative of a food manufacturing company to a suspended prison term for falsely labeling the origin of their products.

On the 11th, the Gwangju District Court's Criminal Division 4 (Judge Kim Tae-kyun) revealed that it sentenced Mr. A, who was indicted for violating the law on the labeling of agricultural and fishery products’ origin, to 6 months in prison with a 2-year suspension.

Mr. A operated a food processing company in the Seo-gu district of Gwangju and is accused of falsely labeling the origin of 104,224 kg of finished kimchi from July to November 2022 by adding only domestic seasoning to the product originally made from Chinese ingredients.

False labeling of the origin as domestic

The seriousness of origin labeling violations

Furthermore, it was revealed that Mr. A used 4,126 kg of Chinese chili powder while manufacturing 103,150 kg of kimchi from January to November last year, yet misled consumers by indicating that all the chili powder was of domestic origin.

The court also imposed a 40-hour community service order in addition to the suspended prison sentence.

The court stated, "Considering the duration and amount of the crime, the nature of the offense is not light, but we took into account that it is Mr. A's first offense."

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