A visually impaired customer at a local Lotteria hamburger franchise location in downtown Seoul reads a menu marked with Braille on Sept. 15, 2017. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 15 (Korea Bizwire) — About 6 out of 10 beverage, cup noodle and milk products have no braille guides, and for those products that did have braille guides, the readability was low, a consumer advocacy group said Wednesday.
The Korea Consumer Agency (KCA) conducted a survey of 321 food items consisting of beverages, cup noodles and milk products from 14 domestic food companies. Only 121 products from nine companies had braille guides.
The inclusion of braille guides is not a legally binding requirement for food items.
Among 191 beverage products, only 49.2 percent had braille guides, with the data showing that 89.9 percent of 89 canned beverages had braille guides but only 13.7 percent of 102 PET bottles had braille guides.
Among 90 cup noodle products, 28.9 percent had braille guides, while only one out of 40 milk products had such guides.
The analysis of the content of indication and readability for 121 food items with braille guides showed that 85.1 percent of beverages were indicated as beverages or carbonated drinks.
The share of beverages that indicated the product name in braille remained low at 14.9 percent.
There was no food item that indicated the shelf-life period in braille. The KCA noted that visually impaired people are thus at a higher risk of consuming spoiled food.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
