Integrated Food Service Management Support Centers will be established in all cities, counties, and districts within the year, enabling food service facilities for children, the elderly, and the disabled that lack a nutritionist to receive professional hygiene, safety, and nutritional management.
On the 9th, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced plans to establish and operate the Integrated Food Service Management Support Center.
The Integrated Food Service Management Support Center is an organization that supports hygiene, safety, and nutritional management in food service facilities without nutritionists by expanding the scope of support from existing children’s meal facilities to include facilities for the elderly and the disabled.
Currently, Integrated Food Service Management Support Centers have been installed in 205 cities, counties, and districts nationwide, and preparations for installation are underway in the remaining 23 regions. The number of installed areas has steadily expanded from 120 cities, counties, and districts in 2024 to 166 last year, and to 205 as of July this year.
The new center requires support to enhance operational capabilities, as its staff relatively lacks job proficiency and field experience, and it must support various types of meal facilities for the elderly and disabled, unlike those for children.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, together with the Food Safety Management Institute, is providing customized consulting to new centers.
In particular, since 2023, a mentoring system has been in operation that connects existing centers supporting meal facilities for the elderly and disabled as mentors with new centers as mentees to share practical field experience and operational know-how.
As a result of the mentoring program, the satisfaction level of the mentee centers averaged 4.76 out of 5 points. The evaluation of the program’s operation for the 34 centers that participated as mentees last year also confirmed that it was at an appropriate level, indicating that it helped new centers settle stably into the field.
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety plans to complete the installation of Integrated Food Service Management Support Centers within this year in cooperation with local governments for regions where they have not yet been established, and will continue to provide follow-up support, such as mentoring and consulting, to ensure that new centers can carry out hygiene, safety, and nutrition management that reflects regional characteristics, including the types of food service facilities and the supply of ingredients.
Kim Hyun-jung, Director General of the Food Consumer Safety Bureau at the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, stated, “The Integrated School Meal Management Support Center is an important public infrastructure that systematically supports hygiene, safety, and nutritional management so that vulnerable groups, such as children, the elderly, and the disabled, can use school meals with peace of mind.” She added, “Moving forward, we will strengthen the center’s expertise and on-site support capabilities to ensure that hygienic and safe school meals are provided anywhere in the country, and we will work to reduce disparities in management levels between regions.”
[출처] 대한민국 정책브리핑(www.korea.kr)
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