Among the top 30 items with the highest shares in the overall rise in consumer prices over the past year, 12 were food-related, such as food and beverages and ingredients. Among foods, rice, the staple of the people, had the biggest impact on inflation. Rice prices jumped 18.3% in one year.
On the 11th, ChosunBiz obtained from the National Data Office materials titled "Contribution to prices by item in Jan. 2026" containing this information. Consumer prices rose a total of 2% between Jan. last year and Jan. this year, and the materials show how much the price increases of specific items contributed to that rise.
No. 1 overall was insurance service fees, which rose 15.3% over the past year and accounted for 0.18 percentage point of the overall increase in prices. No. 2, apartment maintenance fees, climbed 3.9%, accounting for 0.088 percentage point of the rise. A Data Office official said, "Insurance service fees and apartment maintenance fees are cited every year as the top one to two items that most affect the rise in prices."
Next, rice ranked No. 3, with prices jumping 18.3% over the past year and accounting for 0.073 percentage point of the overall increase in prices. Analysts say that as the area for rice cultivation last year (678,000 hectares) fell to the lowest level since statistics began, it led to higher prices.
Among foods, the item that had the next biggest impact on the rise in prices after rice was sashimi in the dining-out institutional sector (No. 5 overall; 0.043 percentage point). It was followed by coffee in the dining-out institutional sector (No. 10; 0.036 percentage point), apples (No. 11; 0.033 percentage point), and domestic beef (No. 14; 0.029 percentage point).
Other foods that affected the rise in prices included pork (No. 16; 0.027 percentage point), bread, mackerel, and hangover soup (tied for No. 19; 0.024 percentage point), imported beef (No. 23; 0.022 percentage point), and instant noodles and yellow croaker (tied for No. 29; 0.019%p).
Koo Yun-cheol, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs and Minister of Economy and Finance, launched the "task force (TF) of related ministers for special management of people's livelihood prices" that day and said, "We will conduct intensive crackdowns in the first half on food corporations that raise prices and extract profits through unfair practices such as collusion and monopolies."
Ju Biung-ghi, chair of the Fair Trade Commission, also said, "We will mobilize administrative resources and policy tools to respond with full force to resolve the structural root causes that raise people's livelihood prices."