Seoul ropes in catering firms to push seafood consumption amid fears over Fukushima water release

SEOUL - The South Korean government and politicians are scrambling to assure the public that it is safe to eat seafood, amid growing concerns that

Tokyo’s 30-year plan to release treated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant

in north-eastern Japan could be detrimental to the quality of seafood sourced from waters off the Korean peninsula.

Later this week, the government, the ruling People Power Party, the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives and meal service providers for corporations – including Samsung Welstory, Ourhome, Hyundai Green Food and CJ Freshway – will join forces to encourage increased seafood consumption. This includes having more seafood in their corporate meal services.

This comes after the presidential office in Seoul’s Yongsan district on Sunday announced plans to serve Korean seafood at its cafeteria for all staff. Korean seafood will be served on a daily basis throughout this week.

The types of seafood served will range from flatfish to rockfish, mackerel, cutlassfish and sea eel, as well as horned turban, sea squirt, seaweed and abalone. Some of the dishes will feature raw fish. Seafood will continue to be provided at least twice a week, starting in September.

A presidential office spokesman said seafood was also served at Monday’s regular lunch meeting of President Yoon Suk-yeol and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo.

This comes after an announcement that shipbuilder HD Hyundai and its meal service provider Hyundai Green Food signed a memorandum of understanding at the National Assembly on Aug 22, allowing HD Hyundai’s 55,000 staff to consume some 100,000kg of flatfish and abalone caught in Korean waters by the year end.

On Wednesday, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Cho Seung-hwan and Korea International Trade Association chairman Koo Ja-yeol met to explore ways to have more South Korean companies’ meal services include Korean seafood.

This follows Mr Cho’s meeting with Mr Chey Tae-won, who heads the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, earlier in August.

On Friday, Mr Sung Il-jong, a representative of People Power Party, said in a radio interview that serving more Korean seafood to some 500,000 soldiers – with the majority being able-bodied young men doing mandatory service – lies in the hands of the military force.

Mr Sung is leading the coordination effort between meal service providers and the government.

A spokesman at the Defence Ministry said its plans for food service operations are determined on a yearly basis and it serves only Korean seafood in accordance with the annual plan that has already been put in place.

Mr Sung has yet to confirm whether seafood provision could increase in school meals, in a country home to nearly 4.3 million students in elementary, middle and high schools as at 2022.

An official at the Education Ministry said it has not internally confirmed a plan to increase the amount of Korean seafood on schools’ menus.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries has allocated a budget of at least 64 billion won (S$64 million) for 2023 to boost South Koreans’ consumption of seafood, and the government has pledged to inject an additional budget if needed.

On Thursday, the government also hinted at offering discounts of up to 50 per cent on Korean seafood in stores and online marketplaces through the end of 2023.

But opposition parties have continued to attack the government, accusing it of forcing public offices and companies to join in.

Chairman Lee Jae-myung of the main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Korea, said on Monday that Japan’s “environmental crimes of poisoning the Pacific Ocean will never be tolerated”, referring to the plan to release nearly 1.4 million tonnes of water over about 30 years.

The party in Busan criticised its mayor Park Heong-joon on Monday for changing his stance on the release of treated water, two years after he submitted an open letter to the consulate-general of Japan in Busan, calling on Tokyo to scrap the plan.

The minor progressive Jinbo Party also said in a statement on Sunday that the government is “turning a blind eye on Japan’s act of international crime and instead forcefully carrying out the supply of seafood through meal service providers”.

In the meantime, the government again assured the public of the safety of seafood circulating in South Korea, including seafood caught in Korean waters and Japanese seafood that passed radioactivity checks here.

South Korea bans the import of seafood from eight Japanese prefectures, including Fukushima, and requires radioactivity checks on seafood sourced from 17 other prefectures.

On Monday, Vice-Minister of Oceans and Fisheries Park Sung-hoon said that a special inspection on 20,000 seafood importers to look into any potential cases of food fraud – largely by faking Japanese seafood’s country of origin – will be conducted for more than three months from Monday.

There will be a greater focus on specific types of seafood such as scallops, red sea bream and sea apples.

Mr Park added that no radioactivity was detected in Korean seafood and the country has carried out over 3,848 rounds of inspections so far in 2023, as at Friday. No abnormalities were found in imported Japanese seafood throughout 3,423 radiation safety inspections conducted until Thursday.

Monitoring was done on 15 locations in waters off the southern part of the Korean peninsula and near Jeju Island. After Japan started releasing treated wastewater, five locations showed the level of radiation from seawater regarding radioactive elements such as caesium and tritium as being much lower than the drinking water standard set by the World Health Organisation.

This means the waters are “confirmed to be safe”, the Oceans and Fisheries Ministry said, adding that the monitoring result has yet to be announced for the other locations.

The Education Ministry also revealed on Sunday that from 2021 until May, no Japanese seafood was used in meal services for 11,843 primary and secondary schools combined. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK