South Korea: Organic Products Market Brief Update
As the well being trend is set to become even more prominent in Korea – U.S. Equivalency Agreement (KORUS EA) implementation since July 2014, the prospects for imported organic food seem very bright. The Korean organic foods market, including fresh produce, field crops, and imported processed food has shown strong growth over the last several years. The total market for imported organic food was $78.6 million in 2013 at CIF prices, an increase of 14 percent compared to the previous year. However, new organic import regulations went into effect on July 1, 2014 as an implementation of Korea – US Equivalency Agreement and this may lead to a dramatic increase of imported organic processed products. Only about 10 percent of the organic products found in the Korean market are imported processed products while over 80 percent are manufactured in Korea using imported organic ingredients.
