US eggs crack Korean market as Seoul fights worst bird-flu outbreak
SEOUL (Reuters) – US white-shelled eggs landed on South Korean supermarket shelves beside local brown-shelled eggs on Monday as the country scrambled to boost imports to relieve a shortage amid its worst-ever bird-flu outbreak.
Some six million eggs, mainly from the United States, are set to hit the shelves this week as South Korea launched emergency import measures after egg prices shot up 70% ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday this weekend.
Thirty US eggs cost 8,470 won ($7.27) at Lotte Mart, one of South Korea’s major discount stores, which began selling the imports on Monday.
That was down from the average retail price for local eggs of 9,285 won as of January 20. Prices stood at around 5,438 won when the first bird-flu case was confirmed in November, according to staterun Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Corp.
“US-origin eggs are good, but I prefer to use Korean eggs because the Lunar New Year holiday is a Korean traditional holiday. Even if local eggs are more expensive, I would buy them,” said Park Hee-kil, 64, a lady who was shopping at a Lotte Mart store in Seoul.
In the wake of the bird-flu epidemic, Asia’s fourth-largest economy culled more than 32 million farm birds, or nearly a fifth of its poultry population, mostly egg-laying hens.
The country’s egg production is expected to decline 12.7% to 559,000 tons in 2017 from a year earlier, according to the state-run Korea Rural Economics Institute.
“Egg imports may be needed through the first half of this year,” said Ji Seon-U, a researcher at the state-run think tank, adding that the volume would depend on how soon egg prices and output stabilized.
The Korean government expected a total of 1,500 tons, or roughly 25 million eggs, to be imported mainly from the US before the holiday season. That compared with a total of 1,856 tons of egg products worth about $12 million imported last year, according to Customs Office data.
As of Sunday, 444 tons of shell eggs and 217 tons of egg products had been shipped to Korea since January 5, according to the Agriculture Ministry.
The ministry also plans to import a total of 200,000 baby chickens and parent stock for egg-laying hens from five bird-flu-free countries, including the US, Australia and Spain, to rebuild flocks.
“However, we can’t start it right away because farms have to be virusfree for three months,” Ji said.
Given it takes at least six months for the offspring of parent-stock birds to start laying eggs, the new hens would only start producing in the second half of this year, he said.