Recently, on an internet community, a post was posted stating that the coffee shop 'A' falsely displayed the caffeine content of some menu items.
According to this post, until recently, the company announced on their homepage that the milk tea product had 0 mg of caffeine per serving.
Usually, milk tea contains caffeine, so the product was introduced as 'milk tea that pregnant women can drink without burden' on online blogs.
However, it turns out that this product also contains caffeine just like any other cafe's milk tea.
When a customer asked for a fact check, the company changed the caffeine content of milk tea to 113.7mg on the website.
This figure is close to 6 times the caffeine content of 20 mg in green tea menu.
Company A admitted, "After a customer inquiry earlier this month, (the caffeine content of milk tea) was reflected on the website," and explained, "Coffee shops are classified as resting restaurants, so labeling of nutritional information is not mandatory."
The author of the post confirmed this fact and asked, "Pregnant women, children, and those who are sensitive to caffeine, please take this into consideration when eating this menu."
According to related industries and authorities today (20th), even if coffee shops incorrectly label the caffeine content of beverages, sanctions are not implemented well, so consumers need to pay special attention.
An official from Company A explained, "Recently, the caffeine content has changed due to the change in milk tea ingredients, and the changed beverage ingredient information was to be provided sequentially through the store and the website.
If there was no inquiry because a customer inquired and updated the ingredient change sooner than originally planned, it is likely that the caffeine content of the caffeinated milk tea was indicated as 0 mg for a longer period of time.
In fact, it's been a while since the beverage menu has been mislabeled, and this practice is not strictly regulated.
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) previously revised the 'Food Labeling Standards' in November last year to create standards for coffee shops with more than 100 stores to refer to when labeling the caffeine content of beverages.
According to this standard, coffee shops can label the caffeine content of 'high caffeine' coffee or tea containing 0.15 mg or more of caffeine per 1 ml.
Company A's milk tea contains 113.7 mg of caffeine in 591 ml of serving, which is high caffeine, but whether or not to label the caffeine content is a matter for the company to decide voluntarily and is not obligatory.
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety is guiding through the Food Safety Nara website, "Even if the caffeine label value of coffee shops exceeds the allowable error range, it is not subject to administrative disposition."
Some have pointed out that coffee shops need to be stricter on caffeine labeling to ensure that consumers do not unintentionally consume caffeine.
Eunhee Lee, a professor of consumerism at Inha University, said, "In the case of food, the causal relationship between the consumption of certain ingredients and the side effects that occur afterwards is often not clearly revealed. There are consumers who are sensitive to caffeine, and it is desirable to strengthen labeling management for their right to know.”
(Photo = Taken from company A's website, Yonhap News)