South Korea to build massive storage facilities for kimchi makers

South Korea's kimchi makers are in serious pain due to a shortage of cabbages due to the climate change that caused the prices to go up this year, causing the damage caused by cheaper offerings from Chinese competitors.

Such is the sense of crisis surrounding the spicy pickled side dish that many Koreans eat daily, and central to Korean identity, that the government recently laid out plans to build two massive cabbage storage facilities.

The facilities to be built in the rural counties of Goesan and Haenam will, together, be equivalent to three football fields in size. They will be able to store 10,000 tons of cabbages and pickle 50 tons of cabbages daily.

The construction, expected to cost taxpayers 58 billion won $40 million, is due to be completed in 2025.

Government intervention can't come soon enough for local kimchi makers struggling to purchase sufficient cabbages at current high prices.

A climate change in recent years has caused higher temperatures and heavier rainfall to damage cabbage crops, curtailing supply. The price of cabbages doubled this year in less than three months, a result of a surge in inflation to 24 year highs hit in July.

Ahn Ik-jin, the chief executive of Cheongone Organic, said that we used to buy cabbages in June and store them for later use when cabbage prices go up, but this year we are already out of stock.

He said that we used to produce 15 tons of kimchi a day but now we are only producing 10 tons or less. His company has had to raise its kimchi price by two-thirds to 5,000 won $3.5 per kilogram.

South Korea's kimchi industry has been on a slippery slope for a long time.

Chinese imports, often priced at about a third of locally made kimchi, have surged over the past two decades to account for 40% of the domestic market for commercially made kimchi.

The industry has crumbled when you add in weak cabbage harvests over the past few years. About three-quarters of the commercially made kimchi is cabbage-based, while kimchi can be made from other ingredients. In a study by Korea Rating Data, almost half of South Korea's 1,000 odd kimchi makers shut down permanently or temporarily or switched over to other products last year.

Korean kimchi makers are hoping that the plan will prevent home-grown producers from losing ground.

The government hopes the storage complexes will help strengthen domestically made kimchi's position globally, said Lim Jeung-guen, deputy director of the agricultural ministry's food industry promotion division, which said more complexes could be built if the first two work out well.

The country's kimchi exports surged 10.7% to a record $160 million last year, due to a wave of interest in Korean culture, spurred by the likes of boy band BTS and Netflix's dystopian drama Squid Game Domestically, but concern is growing that the cabbage shortage will not only hurt the tradition of 'Kimjang' -- the making and sharing of kimchi among families, friends and communities, often conducted in but not limited to November.

The sales of ready-made kimchi have climbed 20% since August compared to the same period a year ago, according to an official at the Hanaro Mart supermarket chain.

Kim Sook-kyung, 72, said I usually make kimchi but the cost of ingredients has gone up. She bought ready-made kimchi at a supermarket in Seoul.

I plan to mix making and buying kimchi going forward.