A notice of advance reservation of pickled cabbage is placed at Lotte Mart's Seoul Station branch on October 1. Yonhap News

As the price of Korean cabbage shows no signs of falling after Chuseok, the shortage of cabbage kimchi continues. Large retailers, which began pre-ordering pickled cabbage ahead of the kimchi-making season, are busy securing supplies of autumn cabbage, which will begin shipping later this month.

On October 1, it was difficult to find kimchi made with whole cabbage in the packaged kimchi section of major supermarkets in Seoul. In many cases, there were only substitutes, such as sliced cabbage kimchi and seasoned kimchi, and radish kimchi, which use only part of the cabbage, left on the shelves. Companies selling packaged kimchi also found it difficult to find enough high-quality cabbage to make kimchi. This is because the number of consumers looking for packaged kimchi has increased due to the high price of cabbage.

Kimchi was mostly out of stock on online shopping malls of the three major supermarkets, as well as shopping malls of kimchi manufacturers, such as Jongga and Bibigo.

The original of Korean cabbage was also out of stock. Despite the purchase restriction notice of "three heads of cabbage per person,” there were already only two heads of cabbage left on the vegetable stand of a large supermarket in Mapo-gu, Seoul, at around 12 p.m. that day. In other words, all cabbage was sold out within two hours of the mart's opening.

“I use kimchi made with domestic cabbage, but if I sell 50 bowls of kalguksu, it will cost me 100,000 won for kimchi alone,” wrote the owner of a kalguksu restaurant on an online community for self-employed people. ”I plan to buy kimchi in October.”

According to the Korea Agro-Fisheries and Food Trade Administration (aT), the price of a head of Korean cabbage was 9,662 won as of September 30, which is 56 percent higher than last year and 34 percent higher than the average year.

In general, the price of autumn cabbage is the most expensive around Chuseok and then gradually decreases after the end of October, when autumn cabbage for making kimchi is shipped. Even in 2022, when heavy rains and Typhoon Hinnamno caused a “cabbage crisis,” the retail price of cabbage, which had reached nearly 10,000 won per head by September, dropped below 3,000 won by the end of November.

However, this year's unprecedentedly long period of heat waves has raised concerns about the crop of autumn cabbage. This year's heat waves lasted until mid-September, with daytime high temperatures approaching 35 degrees. Many farmers reportedly suffered damage, including melting of cabbage seedlings planted in the field due to the high temperature.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, this year's autumn cabbage harvest, estimated based on the official scale, is expected to be 2.7 percent lower than last year.

Major supermarkets are closely monitoring the situation in producing areas to see if they will be able to secure supplies of pickled cabbage for the kimchi-making season as planned. Lotte Mart started accepting reservations for kimchi cabbage sourced from Haenam, Pyeongchang, Goesan, and Yeongwol at its offline stores from October 1 to 6. Customers can make a reservation in advance and choose a pickup date between November 8 and December 21.

The price of Haenam pickled cabbage (20 kilograms) sold by Lotte Mart is at least 29,900 won when applying L-point discounts and credit card companies’ discounts, which is similar to the previous year, but the supply is not expected to be enough to meet the demand.

An employee at Lotte Mart in Jung-gu, Seoul, which started accepting reservations for pickled cabbage on this day, gave a tip to customers, saying, “The quantity of pickled cabbage is limited, so if you want to reserve it, you better hurry.” E-Mart will start taking reservations for pickled cabbage and kimchi for a week from the 25th of this month, and Homeplus will start selling them in the middle of this month and will determine the price according to the supply and demand of cabbage.