Same price, less food: Restaurants quietly ration as costs rise
Rising ingredient costs are pushing restaurants to drop items, shrink servings and charge for once-free extras without raising menu prices.
The owner of a gimbap (seaweed roll) diner prepares gimbap in Yeongdeungpo District, western Seoul, on Sept. 17. The restaurant recently stopped using ham in its gimbap due to rising ingredient costs.
KANG BO-HYUN
At a gimbap (seaweed roll) stall in Yeongdeungpo District, western Seoul, the owner surnamed Oh rolled rice, egg, diced carrots, spinach and pickled radish into a sheet of seaweed for a 3,500 won ($2.50) roll — and left out the one beloved ingredient: the ham.
"Ingredient costs per roll went up 500 won, to 2,500 won," Oh said. "Rather than raise the price and risk losing customers, I cut the ham instead."
As prices soar, a phenomenon some are calling stealthflation is spreading through Korea's restaurant industry, where restaurants are shrinking portions, cutting side dishes and quietly reworking their menus to absorb rising costs without raising sticker prices.
A kimchi jjigae (kimchi stew) restaurant in Jongno District, central Seoul, recently dropped gim (dried seaweed) from its basic side dishes. A gukbap, or rice soup, restaurant in Mapo District, western Seoul, started charging 1,000 won for rice refills that used to be free and unlimited.
The result is a kind of invisible price hike: It keeps the increase off the official inflation gauge even as customers quietly get less food or service for the same money. Some complain this is effectively no different from a price hike.
"I understand the frustration from consumers, but these days restaurant owners are saying there's almost nothing left in their bank accounts once they've paid for ingredients and labor," said Yoo Deok-hyeon, head of the Korea Federation of Micro Enterprise.
The average retail price of a 20-kilogram (44-pound) bag of rice reached 61,343 won last month, up about 18 percent from 51,852 won in August 2024, according to price data from the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation. Over the same period, the average retail price for 10 sheets of dried seaweed rose 7.15 percent, from 1,343 won to 1,439 won. The average retail price of a 150-gram (5.3-ounce) pack of gimbap ham climbed 5 percent, from 2,730 won in January to 2,866 won this month, according to the Korea Consumer Agency's price information portal.
"We need policy support for things like joint ingredient purchasing or direct sourcing to ease the cost burden on small restaurant owners — alternatives that can lower the burden for both business owners and consumers," said Lee Hong-joo, a professor in Sookmyung Women's University's Department of Consumer Economics.
BY CHOI HYUN-JU, LIM SUN-YOUNG, KANG BO-HYUN [[email protected]]
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
