Purpose: This study was conducted to identify specific food safety challenges and training needs in Korean restaurants in the U.S. through health inspection reports.
Methods: A list of Korean restaurants (n= 1,120) was collected from an online resource (http://www.ussaram.com/), which included various Korean American-owned businesses. Food code violations of 230 randomly selected establishments across 54 cities in 20 states were recorded from the most recent online state or local health inspection reports. All violations were re-categorized using the state of NY inspection form. Descriptive statistics for total, critical, and behavior-related violations and frequencies for individual violations were used to target food safety challenges in Korean restaurants.
Results: The distribution of selected establishments emulated that of Korean American population in the U.S. The number of total violations per inspection ranged from 0 to 20 (Mean ± SD = 5.8 ± 3.5) with 2.4 ± 1.9 critical, 3.8 ± 2.5 behavioral, and 1.1 ± 1.3 critical-behavioral violations. Most Korean restaurants had one or more critical (89.7%) and behavioral (97.0%) violations. The three most frequently-cited behavioral violations were: 1) food not being protected through the food flow (n = 109, 47.4%), 2) floor and facility maintenance (n = 82, 35.7%), and 3) non-food contact surface maintenance (n = 79, 34.3%). The most frequently-cited critical violations were improper food temperatures during cold-holding (27.8%), hot-holding (18.3%), and storage (11.8%).
Significance: The types of violations in Korean restaurants were similar to those previously published for other ethnic restaurants. However, Korean restaurants showed greater food safety training needs for properly labeling and covering food during storage as well as in maintaining floor, facility, and non-food contact surfaces than other ethnic restaurants.