- Laying the foundation for reforming shelf life system 
for rational food consumption - 
 

The Korea Consumer Agency (President: Kim Young-seen, www.kca.go.kr) jointly held a public hearing with the Korean Society of Food Hygiene and Safety in order to find ways for improvement of the existing food expiration date system for rational consumption life in the headquarters in Seoul on March 16^th .

The KCA co-hosted the Hearing as part of an effort to change perception of consumers to food expiration date and improve the existing expiration date system throughout its two rounds of experimental research on 「the adequacy of food intake after passing the expiration date」(2009, 2010).

Under the current law, the expiration date is defined as period within which a product can be sold. Yet, consumers misunderstand it as the deadline until when the product is adequate for eating or drinking. Against this backdrop, all food products with which the shelf life has passed are usually thrown away regardless of whether they can be ingested or not. 

According to the KCA, the Hearing was successfully held and became a venue for participants from the government, academia, food manufacturing and distributing industry, and consumers to share their views on the defect of the existing expiration date system and a waste of resources and their positions on changing consumers’ perception to expiration date and improving the expiry date system.