Despite the 'Naked Kimchi' Controversy in China... Restaurants Say "No Plans to Change"

A scene of pit burial-style cabbage pickling in the northeastern region of China. / Photo by Internet Community Capture

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Seo-young] Despite the so-called Chinese-made 'Naked Kimchi' controversy, it is known that the use of Chinese kimchi has not significantly decreased in most domestic restaurants.

Today (the 4th), the Korea Foodservice Industry Research Institute announced the results of the 'Survey on the Impact of the Chinese Kimchi Controversy on Foodservice Businesses,' conducted from April 20 to 30 this year on about 1,000 domestic food establishments. According to the survey, the purchase ratio of imported kimchi before the Chinese kimchi controversy decreased only by 4.0 percentage points, from 47.1% to 43.1%. Nearly 100% of the kimchi imported into Korea is actually Chinese-made.

In the survey, when asked whether they intended to switch to domestic kimchi after the Chinese kimchi controversy, 67.9% responded 'No.' By industry, the responses were in the order of Chinese cuisine (81.2%), Western cuisine (70.0%), gimbap and other simple food restaurants (69.9%), Korean cuisine (62.6%), and Japanese cuisine (50.0%).

Also, when asked why they did not switch imported kimchi to domestic kimchi, the highest response at 53.2% was that domestic kimchi is expensive. This was followed by 18.0% who said the imported kimchi they currently purchase is reliable, 17.6% who said there are no customer complaints even when using imported kimchi, and 6.6% who said they substitute with items like danmuji (pickled radish).

Response results on the reasons for the unwillingness to change imported kimchi to domestic kimchi. Photo by Korea Foodservice Industry Research Institute

In fact, despite the Chinese kimchi controversy, the import amount of kimchi this year has not shown a significant difference compared to last year. According to the Korea Customs Service's export-import trade statistics, the total kimchi import amount from January to May was $59.324 million (approximately 67.3 billion KRW), which is only a 2.7% decrease compared to the same period last year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.