In the first 10 months of this year, South Korea imported $159m worth of kimchi, almost entirely from China, while exporting $137m

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/55456416

Kimchi from China sells to restaurants for about 1,700 won ($1.15) per kilogram, while Korean-made versions average about 3,600 won ($2.45), more than double the price.

Around three-quarters of South Korea’s kimchi manufacturers are micro-businesses with four or fewer employees. Most rely on labour-intensive methods that struggle to compete with industrial-scale production in China.