Korean Job Discussion Forums

[xCustomx]

Korea started importing American beef as of Sunday evening. Will this have any effect on the beef prices here, especially in supermarkets?


SEOUL (Reuters) - The first shipment of U.S. beef since
South Korea ended a 3-year-old ban on American beef imports arrived at South Korea's Incheon airport on Monday, the Agriculture Ministry said.
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The cargo of nine metric tons of chilled beef will be checked by quarantine officials to see whether the shipment meets the safety conditions that Seoul and Washington agreed upon, a ministry official said.

South Korea, once the world's third-largest export market for U.S. beef, banned U.S. beef imports after the first case of mad cow disease was found in the United States in December 2003.

South Korea agreed in January to allow imports of American beef from cattle less than 30 months old, on condition that parts it regarded as risky, such as ribs, were removed prior to shipping.

However, South Korea delayed the reopening of its market several times because of safety concerns. It announced in September it would allow U.S. shippers to enter the South Korean after growing bilateral trade tensions over the issue.

But Seoul imposed strict rules, saying that if tiny bone fragments were found, exports from the plant that shipped the product will be barred. And if any risky parts were found, all U.S. beef imports will be suspended again.

The United States once accounted for more than two-thirds of South Korea's beef imports, or about $850 million in products annually.

[Juregen]

The public will find a good reason not to play thrue normal market mechanisms....

Do not expect it on the short run though, the meet still has to be pushed thrue the channels.

[Wangja]

Maybe they have become accustomed to the superior quality of Australian beef?

[Ya-ta Boy]

Not all stores will carry American beef (at least not all of them did before the ban). Normally, it is put in its own little ghetto away from Korean beef, so you may have to hunt for it even in stores that carry it.

One of the nice scams that used to happen was that restaurants would buy the cheaper American beef and sell it as Korean beef at the higher price, making a tidy profit on each sale.

BTW, it's a well-known 'fact' that everyone knows that imported beef is cheaper because it is lower quality than Korean beef. Why would the US send Korea low quality beef? Because the US does not respect Korea. Everyone says so.

I heard somewhere that US beef will go on sale in the stores around Nov. 15. I can't wait to make a real hamburger.

[cdninkorea]

How am I supposed to tell the difference in my local E-Mart what's Korean versus Australian versus American beef?

[ttompatz]

[europe2seoul]

Well, truth to be told Korean beef tastes much better when I eat it from the store or in the restaurant. I can even figure out which one is domestic and which one is imported. So, I do not mind paying more for Korean.

[ChuckECheese]

[europe2seoul]

[ChuckECheese]

[shifter2009]

I used to work in meat markets in the states, and my biggest problem is the way Koreans cut their beef. It makes it hard to tell cuts of beef by just looking at them. I admit my skill with korean is pretty much non-exhistant but I figured I could pick out cuts of meat with expierence. It strikes me as very difficult to shop for quality meat here just due to the difference in the meat cutting process.

[Qinella]

[Ya-ta Boy]

On the top line of the price sticker, Korean meat says "국내산". Even more helpful, the imported meat is sold in a separate section, away from Korean meat.

[charlieDD]

I read a report a few months ago that revealed that quite a significant percentage of Koreans simply could not afford and did not eat beef, except on very special occasions, if then. This was contrasted with the percentage who could afford and ate beef before the ban on American beef.

In that same report, it was noted that the day after the gov't here announced American beef would be allowed in again, the auction price of Korean cattle in Korean markets began dropping dramatically (believe it was something like 20% in the first week) and farmers were flooding the market with cattle for slaughter trying to get in before the bottom fell out.

It went on to say that despite the drop in auction "wholesale" prices for the beef, the drop in prices was being reflected in supermarkets or meat markets at the consumer level.

I agree with an above poster: The Korean markets and even the Korean consumers will somehow work it out that the influx of American beef won't make a big difference in the price of beef, at least not any time soon. There's an obsession with "expensive" and the Korean products are the most expensive. Everyone seems to like it that way. Perversed economics rule, riding on national pride.

(e.g. Sure, Korean farmers can grow exotic fruits in hothouses, but should they be doing so when the price they sell "kuk san" exotic fruits for is four times what the imported exotic fruit, coming from where it is grows naturally, is? In any normal market, these farmers could not even consider existing.)

In contrast, I have read that the average Japanese consumer is very interested in seeing American beef return. They're upset with the high price of beef and think the return of American beef will set things straight. Practical economics are taking hold in Japan.

I guess Korea has to follow the Japan path in every detail and will go through this "expensive is better" phase, and be proud of it, have their own bubble burst and meltdown, and finally, hopefully, mature into self-actuated consumers who know a scam when they see it.

IMHO

[charlieDD]

On another note: Read also that American beef producers have shown resilience since the "mad cow" scare closed markets in Asia to their product. The situation prompted them to develop other markets that they hadn't gone after before and they pretty much made up for the sales lost in Asia by exporting to the Middle East / Gulf states, where, thanks to the oil boom that started at about the same time, there was higher demand for imported beef. Some official from an organization of beef exporters described the situation as a blessing in disguise because once the Asian markets do open up again, they're going to be exporting even more than they thought they could before the "crisis", or they're going to be getting a higher price for the beef they export, due to a higher overall demand.

In many countries, if something like this had happened to a big export item, the price of that item in the home country would have dropped significantly as the domestic market got clogged up with un-exported product. This did not happen in the U.S.; beef prices held their ground. The exporters simply found another place to export to, places they had not been too diligent about before.