This study investigated the hazard factors based on imported food non-compliance and global food hazard information for the last 4 years to suggest imported food safety management. Food safety management on utensils or packaging containers is appropriately managed for the compounds derived from them. Food safety management on health-functional foods, processed foods, and agricultural products is concentrated on ingredient contents, food additives, and pesticide residuals. Additional hazards are illegal compounds, mycotoxins & pesticide residuals, hygieneindicator microorganisms and food-borne pathogens in health-functional foods, processed foods, and agricultural products, respectively. The continuous increase in hazards related to safety and hygiene in global food hazard information needs additional attention. To reduce the hazard factors, this study proposes that imported food be limited to products certified by HACCP or an equivalent food safety management system because registering foreign food facilities for processed and health-functional foods is mandatory. Additionally, the customs clearance inspections should focus on the hazard factors derived from the global food hazard information system. This study suggests a global food hazard information system that could derive frequently issued hazard factors at a given period and newly issued hazard factors in aspects, such as food items, subcategories, and exporting countries.
The purpose of this study was to determine the differences in perception of food hygiene and interest in dietary information among university students. A total of 550 college students from Seoul and the surrounding metropolitan area participated in this questionnaire using one-to-one interviews from September 20th to 28th, 2012. Three groups were classified according to level of awareness and practice of food safety. The highest education level of food safety was in the active-practice group (69.6%), with 58.0% in the want-practice group and 24.6% in the low-practice group. There were significant differences between the awareness and practice groups in terms of importance of food safety (p<0.001). Exactly 74.3% interest in food hygiene was measured in the active-practice group. Interests in dietary and food information were different between the groups: 71.4% for the active-practice group versus 24.6% for the low-practice group (p<0.001). Lowpractice group showed the lowest scores for interests in organic food, pesticide-free food, low-pesticide food, slow food, LOHAS, healthy-functional food, nutritional labels, and expiration dates. In conclusion, appropriate levels of food hygiene and food safety education should be provided by the food industry according to perception of food awareness and practice of food safety.
This study examined the consumers' awareness and information need toward the irradiated foods and environmental hormones. The data were collected from 350 adults living in Daegu and Busan by the self-administered questionnaire. Frequencies and chi-square tests were conducted by SPSS. The results of the survey were as follows: (1) consumers' awareness regarding the irradiated foods and environmental hormones were low, while consumers' concerns for them were high, (2) the orders of the information needs for the irradiated foods are safety of irradiated foods, dose permitted for food irradiation, benefits of irradiated foods, kinds of permitted irradiated foods, and legislations of food irradiation, and (3) the orders of the information needs for the environmental hormones are harmfulness of environmental hormones, standards for contamination by environmental hormones, materials releasing environmental hormones, methods to prevent environmental hormones, and kinds of environmental hormones.
This study was conducted to investigate the consumers' recognition and information need for food safety, especially focused on pesticide residues, foodborne illness, and food additives. The data were collected from 350 adults living in Taegu and Pusan by the self-administered questionnaire. Frequencies and chi-square tests were conducted by SPSS. The results of the survey were as follows: (1) the consumers' concerns about food safety were high, (2) many respondents worried about eating vegetables, fruits and grains in turn because of pesticide residues, and did not trust the results from food-safety tests, (3) the major factor for foodborne illness was regarded as unfreshed or contaminated food stuffs, (4) many consumers concerned highly about preservatives among food additives, and tried to consume food containing less food additives, and (5) many respondents wanted to get the information about harmfulness of pesticide residues in foods, method to choose fresh food, and safety of food additives.