Office worker Choi Ye-sol, 28, who lives in Suwon, Gyeonggi, recently went to her regular neighborhood restaurant for clam knife-cut noodles and was told, "We changed our signature menu to seafood knife-cut noodles." The owner said, "It has become hard to get domestic clams and the price has gone up too much, so we started selling seafood knife-cut noodles with mussels and shrimp instead of clams."
The price of domestic clams has risen more than 50% over the past year. Clams are used to add depth to the broth in various dishes. They are also a main ingredient in knife-cut noodles, pasta, and soft tofu stew. Domestic clams are particularly popular, and because domestic supply has not kept up with demand, prices have climbed.
According to reporting compiled by ChosunBiz on the 27th, the price for 100 grams of domestic refrigerated clams in the shell at domestic large retailer A surged 51% in a year, from 990 won last year to 1,495 won this year. At another large retailer B, a similar item rose about 44%, from 820 won per 100 grams to 1,180 won recently. The cooperative auction price for clams also climbed from 3,043 won per kilogram in 2023 to 4,138 won last year, and rose again to 4,240 won this year. That is up 39% in two years.
As a result, prices for knife-cut noodles, which mostly include clams, are also on the rise. According to the Korea Consumer Agency (KCA) price information portal "Chamm가격," the price of knife-cut noodles in Seoul in Oct. was 9,846 won, up 4.9% from the end of last year. Among eight popular dining-out menu items, it rose the second most after kimbap (5.7%), pushing a bowl close to 10,000 won.
◇ Domestic preference is high but production is flat... even with more imports from China, demand is not met
Half of the clam supply in Korea is domestically produced and the rest is imported from China. Total clam supply in the first to third quarters this year was 40,000 tons, similar to the full-year supply last year (40,000 tons). Including fourth-quarter supply, this year's supply is estimated to exceed last year's.
The problem is that production of domestic clams, which consumers prefer, has stagnated, while only imports from China have increased. Domestic production in Jan.–Oct. this year was 19,915 tons, similar to last year. Imports from China in Jan.–Sept. were 22,504 tons, up 22.8% from a year earlier.
Hwang Woon-gi, head of the Tidal Flat Research Center at the National Institute of Fisheries Science's Climate and Environment Research Division, said, "Domestic clams are popular because of the perception that they are 'fresh and high quality' compared with Chinese products," adding, "But domestic production is not increasing significantly, and many people still avoid Chinese clams, so it is hard to expand imports enough to meet domestic demand."
◇ The decrease in domestic clam supply is due to "climate change"... "Domestic seed development is needed"
The biggest reason for the decline in domestic clam supply is considered to be climate change. Clams are relatively tolerant of temperature changes, enduring from summer to winter in Korea. However, after spawning in summer, when their strength is weakened, if the water temperature reaches 30 degrees and the tidal flat temperature rises to 37–39 degrees, they die in large numbers. In the summer of last year, 62% of clams in the South Chungcheong area died due to high water temperatures. In winter, in Gochang, North Jeolla, midday temperatures rose to 20 degrees, leading to losses and deaths exceeding 70%.
Currently, clam aquaculture involves bringing in juvenile clams (young clams) from domestic and Chinese sources, seeding them in farms, and growing them for one to two years before harvesting. Because of this, when wild domestic clams are lost or die, both seed and farming prices inevitably rise. Hwang said, "We need to move away from the method of directly seeding Chinese juvenile clams into tidal flats and overhaul the entire aquaculture system by cultivating domestic seed suited to our environment and placing them in farms."