By Lee Hyo-sik
Fruits, fish and other fresh products imported from South America are gaining increasing popularity among local consumers, mainly for their lower prices.
According to Lotte Mart, Sunday, the food imports from Peru, Chile and other Latin American nations jumped over 10 percent in 2014 from a year earlier.
One of Korea’s three largest discount store chains expects that the trend will continue this year, adding that Korea will bring in a wider range of agricultural, fisheries and livestock products from the region.
“Korea used to import large quantities of orange and other fruits from the United States. For fish, shrimp and other fisheries products, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries were major exporters,” a Lotte Mart spokesman said. “But things have changed as the nation now imports much more at lower prices from South America.”
It has become more expensive to import fresh products from the United States and Southeast Asia due to poor harvests there, the spokesman said, adding that free trade agreements between Korea and Latin American nations have made it cheaper to import agro-fisheries products from them.
“The growing number of consumers is looking to taste fresh goods from South America, prompting us and other retailers to import more from there,” he said.
According to Lotte Mart, the sale of blueberries imported from Chile soared 445.6 percent during the January to February period from the same period last year. Those of walnuts and grapes from that country also rose 54 percent and 52 percent, respectively.
In addition, South America has become a major fisheries exporter to Korea, replacing Southeast Asia.
For instance, Korea used to import pacific white leg shrimp from Thailand and Vietnam.
But with soaring prices as a result of the decline in output there, shrimp prices have gone up, encouraging retailers here to bring in shrimp from Chile and Peru.
Shrimps from South America, which now account for 44 percent of Korea’s total imports of the product, are about 10 percent cheaper than those from Southeast Asia.
Lotte Mart said its sale of South American shrimp rose 46 percent in the first two months of the year from the same period last year. In 2014, imports soared 287 percent from the previous year.