Low birthrates could spell doom for Korea's flower shops

Flowers are on display at Yangjae Flower Market in Seoul on Jan. 5. [YONHAP]

Florists in Korea are facing a double whammy as emptying schools shrink demand for flowers during the most popular graduation season, while inflation and reduced supply from farms are pulling up the product's prices.

Flower prices have soared by up to the 30 percent range compared to last year, the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation said Thursday.

Between Jan. 1 and Jan. 16, the auction price for a bundle of 10 freesias, which are commonly used in graduation bouquets for their attached meaning of “encouragement for new beginnings” in Korea, averaged 3,898 won ($2.92), an on-year increase of 19.4 percent and a jump of 35.4 percent from the same period of 2020 prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hydrangea prices rose 33.4 percent on-year from 4,679 won to 6,240 won, and baby’s breath are now 31.9 percent more expensive, rising from 13,617 won to 17,960 won.

Kim Yang-soon, who has run a flower shop in Anseong, Gyeonggi for 20 years, says graduation season demand for flowers has dropped by at least 50 percent this year from its pre-Covid numbers.

Customers have also felt the rise in prices.

“I wanted to match the price at 30,000 won, but the bouquet was too shabby, so I paid 40,000 won [for a fuller bouquet]. I even had to replace the pink flowers that I wanted for yellow freesias because they were too expensive,” said a customer named Choi of their experience buying flowers for their daughter’s elementary school graduation last week.

Merchants say a decrease in the student population has affected demand.

The number of people between the ages of 6 and 17 in Korea reached 5.31 million this year, down by more than one third from their 2000 figure of 8.1 million.

The decline in the elementary school student demographic, where the effects of the low birthrate can be directly seen, has particularly been stark. The number of elementary graduates shrank from 615,000 in 2000 to 451,000 in 2021, according to the Korean Educational Development Institute. The Education Ministry predicts that the number of elementary, middle and high school students in Korea will decrease by 16.7 percent, or 856,196 people, in five years.

As demand for flowers drops and relatively cheaper flower imports flood the market, domestic farms are losing their ground. Flower farms used to take up 6,429 hectares of land in 2012, but that has since shrunk to 4,229 hectares in 2022.

BY YI WOO-LIM, KIM JU-YEON [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]