South Korea: Declining ginseng consumption, need to secure demand from young people

Declining ginseng consumption… Need to secure demand from young people [anchor] Consumption of ginseng, Korea's representative health food, is decreasing every year. The government plans to increase the number of people looking for ginseng through new products such as black ginseng. Experts advise that securing the demand of young people is a priority. This is reporter Hyeong-min Moon. [reporter] Ginseng is Korea's representative agricultural product and health food, but the number of people looking for it is decreasing every year. Annual per capita consumption, which reached 500g in 2009, has decreased to 380g in 2017 and currently 300g. In particular, 80% of ginseng is consumed as red ginseng, but its market share in the health functional food market is also rapidly decreasing. “As health functional foods become so diverse, the proportion of ginseng among health functional foods is decreasing…” The share of red ginseng in the health food market was 23.6% last year, which is ...