High prices in restaurants hit household budgets

The high cost of food is putting pressure on household spending, according to Statistics Korea yesterday, which pointed out that the cost of 39 of the most popular dishes and items sold at restaurants have hardly dropped over the past decade.

According to the government agency, formerly known as the National Statistical Office, the average price of the 39 items has risen every month since December 1999, from a year earlier. But, on-month, the only time the average monthly price declined was when it fell 0.1 percent in December 2000 from the previous month.

Even the global economic crisis, dubbed the worst since the Great Depression in the 1930s, failed to stop the upward momentum. Since October last year, when the economic crisis became full-fledged across the world, none of the 39 items saw their prices fall from a year earlier.

Juk (rice porridge), soju (distilled liquor), fruit liquors and ice cream were the only items that remained unchanged in October from a year earlier. The prices of 17 of the items such as seolleongtang (beef soup with rice), bibimbap (rice mixed with vegetables and beef), kimchi stew, bulgogi, fried chicken, pizza and spaghetti have not fallen for the past 12 months from a month earlier. The price of fried chicken, for instance, surged 7.2 percent in October from a year earlier, extending its on-year price hike over 6 percent to 10 straight months. Fried chicken franchises used to sell a box of fried chicken for 10,000 won ($8.60) to 14,000 won, but some of them now sell it for more than 20,000 won.

“The price of fried chicken rose sharply last year due to the rising cost of oil has continued to the rise since then,” said a Statistics Korea official. “The raw chicken price rose this year, but the practice of the local service industry that does not drop the prices once they have risen seems to have largely contributed to the price surge,” he added. Compared with two years ago, the price of gimbap (dried seaweed rolls) rose 25.2 percent, followed by ramen at 20.4 percent, pizza at 18.3 percent and black noodles at 14.6 percent.

By Moon Gwang-lip [joe@joongang.co.kr]