SEOUL, KOREA — Ministry of Health and Welfare and Korea Food and Drug Administration decided that they would carry out a pilot program of co-indicating the sell-by date and use-by date of processed food at the ministerial meeting on price control that was held on 29 and would begin the preparation for the pilot program from this coming April. This program is a follow-up action after the “improvement plan for the indication of the expiration date for processed food” announced through the ministerial meeting on price control that was held in last Aug.
This is to prepare the foundation for rationalization of the indication of use-by dates by identifying the effect of the prevention of unnecessary food disposal and acceptance by consumers through the introduction of the sell-by date indication. Aiming to introduce products with the sell-by date and use-by date co-indicated into the market in this Jul., and after selecting the item for a pilot program mainly from among products that have no or low safety problems* by receiving the applications from businesses that are involved in the pilot program.
Products that are to be kept at a room temperature (1~35 ℃) that show a great gap between their sell-by date and use-by date. The private and public sectors will work together to prepare the standards for setting the sell-by date upon the pilot program products, given the distribution and sales environment, etc within an extent of not causing any problem with safety by the month of June. Along with the pilot program, the monitoring for the analysis of its effects will be carried out and the system improvement will be facilitated in earnest through the public hearing among the interested parties.
