Some vegetables now worth weight in gold

Restaurateurs stop serving them; households worry about Chuseok

By Kim Da-ye

The prices of vegetables have been skyrocketing, posing unprecedented pressure on consumers and eateries alike, while the nation’s biggest holiday Chuseok is only a week away.

Consumers complained the most about the price of spring onions while restaurants struggle to provide customers with vegetables for “ssam,” or big-leaf vegetables used for Korean style wraps eaten with rice and meat.

Chinese cabbage and Korean radish ― the two most important ingredients of kimchi ― were among the items that are significantly rising in price.

Kim Soo-jin, 57, a street vendor near Korea House in central Seoul, said she wanted to make spring onion kimchi, but decided against it because of the expensive spring onions. “A bundle of spring onions is 3,000 won and it used to be one third of that.

Kim also said that she also likes fruit, but cannot afford to eat them anymore. “It’s been a while since I had fruit. How could I afford them on a vendor’s earnings?”

Jung Jae-young is a housewife shocked by the 5,000-won-a-bundle price tag for large spring onions. The 59-year-old who lives in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, said she shops at supermarkets or outdoor markets temporarily held in her apartment complex, but finds the prices for vegetables are high wherever one goes. “None of them are cheap. I think there are some problems in distribution.”

Jung’s family used to consume a lot of cabbage and now can’t afford to because their prices have shot up from 2,000 won to 7,000 won. Yet, she said she cannot cut her spending on fresh vegetables because her husband is not well.

A farmer in Busan said over the phone that it’s not just the bad weather but, more fundamentally, the environment has affected the output while being careful to pinpoint any specific causes.

“When I started farming 20 years ago, spring onions would fully grow in two months. It now takes six months,” says Lee the farmer. “The seeds and fertilizer have been improved. So the environment should be blamed.”

This year the spring season was unusually short, chilly while the summer was extremely hot and accompanied by heavy rainfall. According to the Korea Meteorological Administration, the average temperature this past April was the lowest since 1973 at 9.9 degrees Celsius. The average duration of sunshine across the country in April was 176.5 hours ― much shorter than 215 hours last year.

Worries about the high food costs are only mounting as Chuseok approaches ― during which Koreans prepare big feasts for ancestor memorial services and for family gatherings. “If this situation continues, I’m very worried about preparing for Chuseok,” said Jung.

In the meantime, the prices of ssam or leafy vegetables for wrap dishes are greatly affecting restaurant owners. Lee Mi-kyung, an owner of two restaurants, says that five kilograms of sangchu or lettuce reached 130,000 won.

At one of her restaurants, she had to stop serving lettuce, replacing it with sesame leaves and small cabbages because of the price hikes.

According to the Seoul Agricultural & Marine Products Corp., the average price of green lettuce auctioned at the Garak market for the last seven days was 40,200 won ― up from 3,943 won during the same period last year.

“I have 20 employees in one restaurant and 10 in the other. I’m not even sure if I will be able to pay their wages, let alone make ends meet this month,” Lee said. “Furthermore, the more expensive vegetables are, the more customers want them at restaurants.”

The owner of an eatery specializing in food for chasing hangovers or “haejangguk” in Chungmuro, downtown Seoul, who identified himself with only his last name Ryu, complained about the prices of Korean radish, Chinese cabbages and spring onions. “I used to spend 40,000 to 50,000 won a day for vegetables. I now spend up to 200,000 won a day. And there is no way to reduce the cost,” says Ryu.

A recent Bank of Korea data showed that households spent 13.3 percent of their total expenditure on food in the second quarter, the highest figure in nearly nine years. Between April and June, Koreans spent 145.9 trillion won, 19.4 trillion won of which was used on food and beverages. But the consumer price growth stayed at 2.6 percent between June and August.