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North Korea holds dog meat cooking contest, touts it as summer health food

Published: 04 Jul. 2025, 14:22

This image, captured from Korean Central Television on July 4, shows a ″sweet meat″ cooking competition held in Pyongyang. [YONHAP]

North Korea hosted a dog meat cooking contest in Pyongyang to elevate culinary standards for the red meat, state media has reported, touting it as a traditional source of energy for the summer season.

The "sweet meat" cooking competition, held recently at a large restaurant in the capital, drew around 200 cooks from across the city, twice the number who competed last year, the Korean Central Television reported Thursday.

Sweet meat refers to dog meat in North Korea.

The broadcasting network quoted a city official as touting sweet meat soup as a traditional source of summer energy, saying the competition was aimed at elevating culinary standards and sharing know-how on cooking the meat.

North Korea, which suffers from a chronic food shortage, officially promotes the consumption of dog meat and, in 2022, registered sweet meat soup as a regional intangible cultural heritage.

This contrasts with South Korea's law enacted last year, which will ban the breeding of dogs for food, as well as the distribution and sale of dog meat, starting in February 2027.

Yonhap