Food Poisoning Scare Shuts Cafeterias

The lunch meal incident tainted by food poisoning resulted in widespread pandemonium at cafeterias in schools, hospitals, and companies.

Following 93 schools with 90,000 students that halted lunch meals distributed by CJ Food Systems on June 22, from June 23, 536 cafeterias in public facilities, hospitals, and companies will halt operation. In addition, 1,089 schools and companies halted the provision of food materials from CJ Food Systems.

According to the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development and provincial offices of education on June 23, 27 schools which contracted CJ Food Systems directly for distribution of lunch meals or for the provision of food materials produced 1,700 victims of food poisoning from June 16 to 23.

93 schools have halted distribution of lunch meals, including 40 in Seoul, 17 in Incheon, 8 in Gyeonggi, 4 in Busan, 10 in South Gyeongsang province, 1 in Gangwon, 5 in Daejeon, 7 in Gwangju and South Jeolla, and 1 in Ulsan.

The food poisoning incident also affected hospitals and companies, as 47 companies in the South Gyeongsang area halted lunch meal distribution to 17,000 workers.

For several schools where lunch meal programs were halted, some students who did not prepare lunch from home went hungry, while the rest brought their lunches or ate bread, milk, gimbab, or cups of noodles for lunch.

With the late distribution of school notices, two schools, including the Kaywon High School of Arts in Gyeonggi, 12 schools in Incheon, and Imun High School of Daejeon only opened during the morning and had the students return home early.

At Sungeui Girl’s High School where victims of food poisoning first appeared, final exams and the summer holidays have been postponed.

Critics also point to the late response which called for the exacerbation of the incident.

An accident suspected of food poisoning first occurred on June 16, while similar incidents later occurred in other schools, but the provincial offices of education responded one week late by calling for a halt in lunch meals on June 22.

On this matter the government held an emergency ministerial meeting presided by Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook at the central governmental complex located at Sejongno, Jongno-gu, Seoul on June 23, and vowed to launch a probe into lunch meals of 10,000 schools nationwide.

The government stated that “when we discover who is responsible, we will consider ordering that the stores be closed, dealing with the issue as a criminal case by canceling their licenses, and prohibiting them from pursuing a similar area of sales in the same location for six months.”

The government vowed to aid undernourished children and children from low-income households with special meal tickets.

Prosecutor-general Chung Sang-myung ordered prosecutors nationwide to focus until the end of September on monitoring unhealthy distribution of food during the summer.

Prosecutors will take hard measures by arresting public officials that are lax on monitoring illegal activities of production and distribution companies that regularly produce or sell food gone bad or unhealthy food.