Highway rest areas are meant to be places where travelers can eat safely, yet recent findings suggest otherwise.
Reports of flies in ramen, crickets in udon, and even medicine packets mixed into rice have raised serious concerns about food safety.
According to data submitted by Rep. Jeong Hee-yong of the People Power Party to the National Assembly’s Agriculture, Food, Rural Affairs, Oceans and Fisheries Committee, 20 violations of the Food Sanitation Act were uncovered in highway rest area restaurants and cafes nationwide between 2021 and August this year.
The most frequent issue was foreign substances in food (9 cases), followed by improper food handling (4), incomplete water testing (2), failure of staff to wear sanitary helmets (2), and general kitchen hygiene problems (1).
Examples include solid debris in beverages, string in soup, and other lapses attributed by operators to employee mistakes.
Critics argue that these explanations overlook the fact that rest areas serve thousands of transient customers daily, making proper hygiene essential.
With travel surging during holidays like Chuseok, concerns are mounting that the lack of repeat customers leads to complacency in food safety.
Calls are growing for stricter oversight, including unannounced inspections, to ensure that travelers can dine at rest areas with genuine peace of mind.