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Koreans ate 66 pounds of pork, on average, in 2024

Published: 03 Mar. 2025, 18:03 Updated: 03 Mar. 2025, 18:15

KIM JU-YEON
[email protected]

Shoppers line up to buy samgyeopsal, or pork belly, at an Emart branch in Eunpyeong District, northern Seoul, on March 3. Supermarkets discounted the fatty cut for the day, which agricultural associations promote as Samgyeopsal Day in Korea. [YONHAP]

What’s Korea’s favorite chop of meat? Pork, by a long stretch — an appetite that has continued to grow, according to data the Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI) published Monday.

Koreans, on average, ate 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of pork per person in 2024, up 6.8 percent from the average annual consumption of 28.1 kilograms, the KREI said in its agriculture outlook report for 2025.

The average annual consumption was calculated using data from 2019 to 2023, excluding the minimum and maximum values.

The 2024 average was 1.4 percent higher than the 29.6 kilograms per person recorded in 2023.

Koreans ate almost twice as much pork as they did chicken, of which they ate an average of 15.2 kilograms, and beef, of which they consumed 14.9 kilograms per capita. In comparison, the average Korean consumed 55.8 kilograms of rice over the period.

Pork was the country’s preferred meat to eat at home. Among 507 consumers the KREI surveyed from Dec. 16 to 22, 63.2 percent said pork was their favorite while 21.1 percent preferred beef, 14.7 percent chicken and 1 percent duck.

Sixty percent of respondents said samgyeopsal — fatty pork belly — was their favorite cut of the animal.

But people purchased less imported pork last year, with consumption dropping by 3.9 percent on year; the most frequently cited reason for buying Korean was that imported meat “tasted worse than domestic pork.” Korea imported around 28 percent of its pork last year from countries including the United States, Spain and Canada.

The KREI projects that pork production will amount to 1.13 tons this year, a similar level to last year. This would price one kilogram of pork at around 5,100 won ($3.49) to 5,300 won, which is similar to the average price of 5,239 won recorded last year.

The self-sufficiency rate for pork production for 2025 is estimated to increase by 1 percentage points on year to 73 percent due to less imports. The high currency exchange rate and a large amount of carried-over inventory means Korea will import 428,000 tons of pork, down 5.4 percent on year, according to the KREI.

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]