In March of last year, a video that appeared to have been filmed at a local kimchi factory was uploaded to Chinese social media.
It looked like a large amount of Chinese cabbage was pickled using an excavator, but a man with a shirt was moving the cabbage while soaking in the turbid salt water.
Excavators that moved piles of cabbage were also rusted everywhere.
Restaurants with 'naked kimchi' sparks
Naturally, after this video went viral on the Internet, more and more consumers refused to eat Chinese kimchi.
Reactions such as 'It was terrible' and 'Chopsticks go to kimchi and come back again' followed.
It was our restaurants serving Chinese kimchi that suffered from this nonsensical incident in China.
It is already difficult because the number of customers has decreased due to Corona 19, but there were cases where customers complained about kimchi.
At that time, a restaurant owner complained, "About four out of ten customers don't eat kimchi at all. From the moment they arrive, they say they don't eat Chinese food."
You can use domestic kimchi, but it is not easy because it is usually 3-4 times more expensive than imported kimchi.
As the wave got bigger, even our Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said, 'The Chinese government has sent an official reply that the cabbage in the video is not for export', but the wave did not subside easily.
Was it the aftermath?
The kimchi trade balance, which had not seen a surplus since 2009 due to imports of kimchi from China, recorded a surplus for the first time in 12 years.
Kimchi imports plummet... Aftermath of 'naked kimchi'?
In fact, it was found that imports of kimchi decreased significantly.
Last year, imports of kimchi amounted to USD 14.74 million, a decrease of 7.7% from the previous year.
It was the biggest decline in seven years since 2014, when it fell by 11.1%.
Most of the imported kimchi is from China, and the price is relatively cheap compared to domestic ones.
It can be seen that the import price of kimchi from China is 15.6% of the export price of kimchi from Korea.
Because of this price competitiveness, imports of kimchi from China continued to be strong, but the amount of imports decreased sharply after the 'naked kimchi' video scandal.
Of course, I can't say it was because of this one video, but it's clear that it had a significant impact.
The fact that the kimchi trade balance turned into a surplus was also attributed to the fact that last year's kimchi exports reached a record high due to the Korean Wave.
According to the Korea Customs Service and the food industry, kimchi exports last year reached $159.92 million, an increase of 10.7% from the previous year, the largest in history.
Kimchi exports have been increasing for the sixth consecutive year from 2016 to last year.
This increase in kimchi exports seems to be attributable to not only the Hallyu craze, but also the spread of awareness in foreign countries that Korean kimchi is a health food that boosts immunity after the outbreak of Corona 19.
The meaning of kimchi trade surplus
Earlier last year, the 'Kimchi War' broke out between Korea and China.
It was the Chinese Global Times that sparked this controversy.
This media is titled 'China led the establishment of Pao Chai International Standards, Korean media explosion: The disgrace of the country that ruled kimchi' , the media pointed out at the time, "Korea is a kimchi deficit country, where imports of kimchi are 10 times that of exports, and most of the imported kimchi is from China."
Isn't this kimchi trade surplus means more than numbers?