White American eggs to receive lukewarm response in Korea

White American eggs to receive lukewarm response in Korea. January. 23, 2017 07:12. by Sung-Min Park min@donga.com. At a discount store in Gocheok-dong, Seoul on Sunday afternoon, a flock of customers gathered around eggs packed in pink-colored plastic boxes that were imported from the U.S. The first imported eggs gave grocery shoppers a sense of curiosity but few of them were willing to buy them. “I don’t think I would buy them as they look smaller than Korean eggs and I’m not quite sure about its sanitation,” a housewife surnamed Kim said while studying the eggs.

Some 120,000 American eggs out of the entire ones that first arrived on Jan. 14 have passed quarantine by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and began to hit the shelves on Saturday afternoon. A carton of 30 eggs sell at 8,940 Korean won (approx. 7.6 U.S. dollars), slightly cheaper than domestically-produced ones at an average price of 9,000 won (approx. 7.7 dollars).

The imported eggs, however, have received lukewarm responses from the shoppers. Up until the afternoon on Sunday, merely about 20 cartons were sold at the store in Gocheok-dong. While a carton of 15 Korean eggs at more expensive price of 5,970 won (approx. 5.1 dollars) ran out shortly, almost all of the 200 cartons of white American eggs which arrived on previous day remained unsold. “As prices are so high, I had to buy imported eggs because they are slightly cheaper,” a grocery shopper named Chae Baek-ryeol said. “The sales performance of American eggs is slower than expected. It seems that Koreans need some time to be familiar with white eggs,” store manager Lee Jeong-sook explained.

Another reason Koreans are reluctant to buy imported eggs is that their prices are almost same with domestically-produced ones. According to aT Korea agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation, a carton of 30 eggs (standard sized egg with medium quality) sells at an average of 9,285 won (approx. 8 dollars) (as of Jan. 20), a decrease of 3 percent from 9,543 won (approx. 8.1 dollars) of Jan. 12. It appears that middlemen who had reduced the amount of egg circulation in the expectation of price increase have released egg stocks into the market.