SEOUL, April 29 (AJU PRESS) – The wholesale price of processed laver sheets jumped nearly 60 percent on year this month, as demand has grown overseas driven by the popularity of gimbap, or seaweed-wrapped rice, and other Korean foods.
According to the state-run Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corp., the wholesale price of 100 sheets of dried laver was 10,440 won ($7.5) on Friday, up 58 percent from 6,628 won a year ago. The average retail price for a sheet of seaweed also exceeded 130 won.
The sharp hike is largely attributable to the increased export of the produce. Between October 2023 and the second week of April 2024, a total of 143.8 million tons of seaweed were harvested, marking a 6.1 percent increase from a year ago.
In January and February, seaweed worth $141.3 million was exported, up 28.1 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries on March 31. The export volume amounted to 6,074 tons, a 15.3 percent increase from the previous year.
Of the total, 862 tons were shipped to the United States, where the popularity of Korean gimbap is surging, especially due to the food going viral on TikTok, a popular social media platform. Exports to China and Japan increased 29 percent and 24.1 percent year-on-year, respectively, during the same period.
The increased price prompted many franchise restaurants to raise gimbap prices by up to more than 100 won per roll.
To control the price hike, the oceans ministry plans to impose zero taxes on laver and processed seaweed until October. Currently, basic taxes of 20 percent and eight percent are applied, respectively. Additionally, the ministry plans to construct new seaweed aqua farms covering an area equivalent to 3,800 football fields to increase production by four percent.
Laver is collected from aqua farms in wet chunks before being dried and processed into thin sheets, each about the size of an A4 sheet of paper.
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