South Korea facing shortage of Kimchi after typhoons wipe out napa cabbages

South Korean workers harvest the cabbage needed for the dish (file photo)

Credit: Yun Suk-bong REUTERS

One of the longest and wettest rainy seasons on the Korean Peninsula in living memory has devastated crops — and sent prices for kimchi, the spicy staple Korean food, soaring.

The Korean rainy season typically lasts for less than a month, but has dragged on for 54 days this year.

To make matters worse, the peninsula was hit by three major typhoons that caused significant flooding and landslides in agricultural areas in August and September.

As a consequence, napa cabbages, the main ingredient in kimchi, are hard to come by and prices have risen 40 per cent on last year.

The prices of other vegetables that are also incorporated into the fermented delicacy, including red peppers, onions and radishes, have also risen by as much as 70 per cent.

The government has released thousands of tonnes of cabbages held in the national stockpile in an effort to keep prices lower for families already feeling the impact of economic hardship brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, but to no avail.

Cows were stranded on a roof due to heavy flooding in August

Credit: STR/YONHAP/AFP via Getty Images

Korean families typically make kimchi at this time of year, known as “kimjang”, and leave it to ferment through the winter months.

With the price of the ingredients now close to £350 for an average family, many are saying that they will skip the tradition this year and get by on supermarket supplies.

Specialist kimchi companies are also being affected, however, with the online site for food company Daesang recently selling out of inventory for its kimchi products.

“After typhoon Haishen ravaged the country in early September, cabbages needed at least a month and a half to grow completely”, an official of the company told the JoongAng Daily newspaper.

Powerfully pungent to many outsiders, kimchi is an indispensable part of the Korean diet, with more than 2 million tonnes consumed every year.

Often incorporated into stews and soups, kimchi is also served as a side dish and comes in more than 200 varieties.

More than 90 per cent of South Koreans say they eat kimchi at least once a day, with over 60 per cent having it at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Kimchi firms are moving to obtain supplies of cabbages from China, while the agriculture ministry has reassured citizens that better weather in the autumn means that a new crop of cabbages should be ready in the early part of next month.