Price Hikes, Again and Again... Chicken, Burger, Buffet, and More Raise Prices Twice in Less Than a Year

The COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, China's lockdown measures, the U.S. interest rate hikes, and soaring international oil prices have all contributed to ongoing inflation. Recently, citizens were shopping at a large supermarket in downtown Seoul. Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporters Moon Hyewon and Jeon Jinyoung] Since the end of last year, widespread price increases across the food and beverage and dining industries?including chicken, bread, hamburgers, and buffets?have been continuously occurring, increasing consumers' burden for food expenses.

According to the franchise industry on the 14th, KFC raised prices on some menu items, including the Zinger Burger, by 200 to 400 KRW starting from the 12th. This is the first increase in half a year since January of this year.

Goobne Chicken raised prices on some menu items in February and then increased prices by 1,000 KRW each for partial meat items such as wings, legs, and boneless chicken starting from the 4th of this month. For example, the popular menu item ‘Goobne Gochu Basasak’ boneless chicken price rose from 21,000 KRW to 22,000 KRW.

Subway raised prices on 15-centimeter (cm) sandwiches by an average of 5.8% starting from the 12th of this month. Subway, which raised prices on a total of 74 menu items, had also increased sandwich and salad prices by an average of 5.1% in January this year.

Kyochon Chicken, which raised chicken menu prices in November last year, recently saw some franchise stores increase delivery fees from the previous 3,000 KRW to 4,000 KRW, a 33% increase. The headquarters stated that this was "at the discretion of some franchise stores" and denied it was an additional price increase, but consumers who pay the total price including delivery fees when ordering have voiced complaints, saying, "Isn't this a sneaky additional increase?"

Hotel buffet prices have also increased twice this year. The Westin Chosun Seoul’s ‘Aria’ raised its Friday and weekend/holiday dinner prices from 145,000 KRW to 150,000 KRW, a 3.4% increase. Aria had already raised buffet prices during those time slots from 135,000 KRW to 145,000 KRW, a 7.4% increase, in January. With consecutive increases, Aria’s price hike rate for this year reached 11.1%.

Walkerhill Hotel & Resort’s ‘The Buffet’ also raised buffet prices twice this year. At the beginning of the year, weekday dinner and weekend lunch/dinner prices were raised from 122,000 KRW to 131,000 KRW, and then again to 143,000 KRW on the 1st of last month, about three months later. The price increase rate for this year is about 17.2%.

The chain price increases in the food and beverage and dining industries are decisions made by companies under pressure from rising prices of raw and subsidiary materials such as grains. International grain prices have been rising for seven consecutive quarters since the end of 2020. This is due to abnormal climate phenomena, prolonged COVID-19-related disruptions in international logistics supply chains, and supply shortages caused by the Russia-Ukraine war. Last month, the average import price of milling wheat was 453 USD per ton (about 1,000 kg), up 42.0% from 319 USD a year earlier. The domestic dining price index for June, recently announced by Statistics Korea, rose 8.0% compared to the same period last year, marking the highest level in 29 years and 9 months since October 1992’s 8.8%.

An industry insider said, “With the combined effects of rising raw material, logistics, and labor costs, as well as grain supply instability caused by the Russia-Ukraine war, product costs are sharply increasing. It is expected that this upward trend will continue across the industry for the time being.”

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