South Korea Online Food Ads: Key Rules Summary
- South Korea is tightening oversight of online food sales over safety and misleading ads.
- AI-driven inspections will be used to improve monitoring of digital food platforms.
- A new 78-page handbook defines “unfair” food advertising and banned claims.
South Korea has been facing increasing controversy in the areas of contactless or online food sales, ranging from food safety concerns to what has been deemed as ‘unfair online advertising’ locally.
The local Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) has attempted to address the area of food safety concerns by revising regulations earlier this year, opting to increase the use of AI technology in inspections and monitoring.
The latter concern over unfair online advertising mainly involves these being unfair to consumers who may not know better and are likely to be misled by these ads.
It covers many areas, from AI-generated ads to misleading claims for cosmetic and weight loss effects, driving MFDS to recently release a 78-page handbook detailing all the messaging and labelling which is now considered ‘unfair’ to consumers.
“MFDS has seen many cases of unfair online advertising in the food sector based on our inspections over the past two years, many of which involve health benefits like height growth for children or diabetes prevention even though these were not true,” the ministry said via a formal statement.
“We have taken action on hundreds of such cases [and now to clearly show what is] considered as unfair online advertising, this handbook will serve to help food firms understand exactly what statements and labels they are not allowed to use.”
One of the most important considerations for food products is to avoid any labelling or indication that their product is a health functional food if it has not been approved as such in the country.
A health functional food or HFF in South Korea covers food products manufactured using functional ingredients that are proven to be beneficial to the human body and have been approved and regulated by MFDS under the Health Functional Food Act.
All HFF products must carry an official certification mark identifying the specific health function they have been certified for, often areas like immunity, energy or digestion.
“It is considered unfair online advertising if consumers perceive a non-HFF to be a HFF based on the ad,” MFDS stated.
“Any representations or ads which are found to be false or exaggerating the functions of these products would thus be dealt with severely.”
Other examples of unfair online ads
Many online advertisements in South Korea have perfected ways to deceive or mislead consumers without actually directly doing so by playing on either the vocabulary or the spokesperson used to market their products.
This includes the use of document such as letters of appreciation, supposed customer testimonials, or terms like ‘Korean medicine’, ‘special method’ or ‘flood of orders’ in the ad; or having a health professional such as a physician, dentist, Korean medicine doctor, veterinarian, pharmacist, herbal pharmacist, university professor or the like guaranteeing the benefits of the product.
“We have also seen labels and ads that use comparative expressions to disparage other companies or their products to push their own, often without objective grounds for this,” MFDS stated.
“Worse yet have been the use of these ads to promote gambling, or using obscene expressions that violate public morals or social ethics. All of these have been included in the handbook as items to avoid.”
The full list of all advertisement wording and labelling to avoid has been laid out in the MFDS handbook, which can be found here. [Link in Korean]
