South Korea: One-third of restaurant ingredients are foreign-made

Published 2021년 3월 12일

Tridge summary

A survey by the Korea Food Service Research Institute in 2020 revealed that the use of foreign food ingredients in South Korean restaurants has significantly increased, reaching an average of 34.1% across 300 restaurants. This represents a fourfold increase from 8.3% in 2016. The survey found that seafood was the most common foreign ingredient, followed by livestock and agricultural products. The trend was most evident in processed foods like kimchi, tofu, and red pepper powder. The research highlighted that restaurant owners are incorporating more foreign ingredients to offset the cost implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise in domestic food prices. This shift could potentially threaten the local agriculture and fisheries sectors.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

300 surveys last year… In 2016, it rose by 4 times in 4 years from 8.3% in 2016, and it was found that one-third of the ingredients used in domestic restaurants are made in foreign countries. As a result of the Korea Food Service Research Institute's survey of the origins of 51 major food ingredients in 300 restaurants in October last year, the proportion of foreign products reached an average of 34.1%. The share of foreign ingredients increased from 8.3% in 2016 to 17.6% in 2018, and then nearly doubled in two years. As for the proportion of foreign products by material type, seafood was the largest at 64.9%, followed by livestock products (31.7%) and agricultural products (18%). For agricultural products, soybeans (45.5%), carrots (28.2%), garlic (20.8%), and so on, and processed foods were kimchi (61.9%), tofu (49.3%), and red pepper powder (48.6%). . According to the results of the survey, most of the respondents revealed their intention to increase the proportion of major ...

Source: Nongmin