The price of spring napa cabbage, considered a seasonal vegetable in spring, rose more than 30% in a month. Demand was spurred by a "spring napa bibimbap" craze centered on social media. After recipe and mukbang videos spread on YouTube and Instagram, even a scene from 18 years ago of TV personality Kang Ho-dong eating spring napa bibimbap on a variety show was revived. Industry officials said the pace of changing food trends is accelerating, widening price swings for materials and supplies.
According to the Korea Agricultural Marketing Information Service (KAMIS) on the 1st, the average wholesale price for 15 kilograms of spring napa (top grade) at Seoul's Garak Market on the 27th was 36,281 won. That was up 31.2% from the same period a month earlier. On the 11th, the price of the same grade hit a peak at 60,456 won.
This is due to a surge in demand. According to E-MART, spring napa sales from the 1st to the 24th last month rose 42.6% from a year earlier. At some large discount stores, spring napa sold out early, and at B Mart operated by Baemin, sales of spring napa from the 19th to the 25th last month were tallied to have increased about 800% from the same period a month earlier.
The industry says this price rise is hard to explain by seasonal demand alone. Spring napa has a short shipping window and poor storability. It is also a product for which it is not easy to boost volume in case demand suddenly increases. In particular, this year a cold snap and heavy snow around the Lunar New Year overlapped in South Jeolla, a key production area, causing frost damage to spring napa and delaying shipping. With supply capacity weakened, the spring napa bibimbap craze lifted demand and sent prices soaring.
A distribution industry official said, "Spring napa is not an item you can stockpile for long to control the price. There is no way to stop a price spike caused by consumption tilting one way via social media," adding, "In the past, it took quite some time for trends, crazes, and popularity via broadcasts to be reflected in prices, but now searches and orders surge at the same time, and wholesale prices rise immediately."
In the past, word of mouth or broadcast effects spread with regional and time gaps, but recently, trends have been spreading in a compressed form centered on short-form content. As the structure has shifted from consumption where trends seep in slowly to one that turns into immediate purchasing behavior, price response time has also moved up.
This is not an issue limited to spring napa. When the Dubai jjondeuk cookie (hereafter Dubai jjondeuk cookie) trend drew nationwide attention, demand for some materials and supplies such as pistachios, kadaif, and cocoa powder — considered key ingredients — concentrated in a short period, pushing up prices. A food industry official said, "Food trends these days do not stop at fun or buzz; they immediately affect the supply and prices of materials and supplies," adding, "The harder an ingredient is to substitute, the greater the price volatility."
The industry sees a high possibility that this phenomenon will repeat. Seo Yong-gu, a professor in the School of Business at Sookmyung Women's University, said, "In an environment of growing uncertainty, a consumption environment consolidated by social media not only concentrates mukbang and recipe trends in a short time, but also responds immediately with price increases if supply cannot keep up," adding, "Seasonal fresh foods and agricultural products that are hard to substitute are highly likely to see repeated price spikes right after a trend."
A distribution industry official said, "As abnormal weather makes conditions for agricultural production unstable and content-based consumption becomes routine, the speed of food trends has accelerated, shortening the buffer period to absorb and reflect them."