The South Korean government will conduct on-site inspections at around 100 overseas kimchi manufacturing plants by 2025 as part of efforts to reinforce sanitation control.

This comes as consumer anxiety over imported kimchi has heightened after a video emerged last month, showing a Chinese production line salting nappa cabbages used to make kimchi in an unhygienic manner.

Ministry of Drug and Food Safety guidelines announced on Thursday outline a three-step system to reinforce safety control in the production, entry and distribution of imported kimchi.

The ministry will revise regulations to adopt the food safety management system known as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point(HACCP) at overseas kimchi manufacturing plants.

Seoul will also reinforce entry inspections of food imports suspected of being hazardous and work with consumer groups to conduct sanitation inspections of around one-thousand distributors and sellers of imported kimchi and other food products.