South Korea Producer Prices: Updated Oct. 21, 2026

Producer prices up for 2nd month in Sept. on higher prices of agricultural goods

Ideas

Having lived and worked in South Korea for many years I experienced the high fruit and vetgetables prices at places like Homeplus and Emart many times compared to the prices in the US or what they used to be in the US.

South Korea, whether good or not so good, has multiple layers of middlemen which tend drive up the price of products before they get to the supermarket or even the Saturday and Sunday markets in South Korea.

And now, like everywhere else these days, wholesalers and producers are quick to pass-on their increased costs to the next in the supply chain including the final retail customer.

Unfortunately, despite what the media says South Korea is not the high-tech behemoth that everyone thinks it is as 99 percent of businesses in South Korea are small or midsize which employ more than 80 percent of the workforce, and many of these small and midsize companies just can't cope with their profits margins beings squeezed due to an increase in raw material costs, energy costs, and even due to the large number of middlemen being squeezed from increasing costs up and down the supply chain.

Producer prices, seem to be very volatile being up and down many times during the year and its hard or even difficult for there to be any real exact estimate on prices which is what producers need to keep their profits margins in line with staying in business these days.

Again, unfortuanly, even an increase of 7.9 percent or 7.9 percent is too much for many of these small and mid-size companies as again, they have very thin profit margins that they have to work with and again 7.7 and 7.9 might not seem like much but it's just too much for many of these businesses.

It really doesn't take that long for the producer prices to each the supermarkets as again producers and even other middlemen seem to be very quick in passing-on their increased prices as they have no choice as they have to keep their profit margins in check or they go out of business very easily these days.

And yes, of course during Chuseok or the Korean thanksgiving period everyone is going to increase prices due the increase in demand and especially livestock and fishery products during the Chuseok holidays.

Consumers in South Korea and especially Korean households are under a lot of economic stress as prices keep increasing and of course, unfortunately, not everyone is in the upper middle income where they can, for the most part, ignore the increase in prices and there is a large number of lower income and even fixed income households that even a 1.3 percent increase in prices can be the difference between good food or less than good food to each each night.

Have a nice day!

Article source:  https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/economy/20261021/producer-prices-up-for-2nd-month-in-sept-on-higher-prices-of-agricultural-goods