Korea’s shaved ice dessert bingsu price up 30% on-year on inflation

Inflation has hit almost every corner of the real economy in South Korea, and the country’s popular summer dessert bingsu is no exception, with its price set to rise about 30% on-year this year.  

Four Seasons Hotel Seoul on Tuesday announced that it will start selling its Jeju Apple Mango Garden Bingsu for 126,000 won ($95.70) in May, 31.3% higher than last year, citing a rise in ingredient prices due to inflation.

Bingsu, sometimes written as bingsoo, is a milk-based Korean-style shaved ice dessert with various sweet toppings like diced fruit, condensed syrup, red beans, and ice cream. It is very popular on the peninsula, especially in summer.

Other high-end hotels in Korea have not unveiled prices of their bingsu to be sold at the hotel restaurants for this year, but they are expected to follow suit with a double-digit increase.

The Shilla Hotel, another luxury hotel in Seoul, last year hiked its apple mango bingsu price by 29.6% to 83,000 won from the previous year, citing a jump in mango prices.

The inflation-driven hike in bingsu prices comes although Korea’s inflation has somewhat slowed this year after peaking at 6.3% in July last year, the highest since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.

Consumer prices in March rose 4.2% from a year earlier, their slowest pace in a year, and the headline inflation is expected to fall to the 3% level in the second quarter of this year, Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho said early last month.

But the current inflation level is still higher than Korea’s central bank’s long-term target of 2%.

FOR THOSE WANTING TO MAINTAIN LITTLE LUXURY 

 
The retail industry expects that the higher price tags of bingsu will not stop consumers’ love for the ice dessert as some people are willing to luxuriate their life with little things while cutting back their spending in general after feeling the pinch of inflation.

Korea is already famous for the country’s luxury fever. International luxury brands have hiked the prices of their high-end products in recent years in Korea but this has not deterred Koreans from queuing for their new releases.  

Bingsu sales at Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas and InterContinental Seoul COEX in May last year were more than doubled from the same month in the previous year.

Bingsu sales are expected to increase this year as the number of foreign tourists to Korea has been on the rise since the removal of COVID-19 restrictions, according to the travel and accommodation industry.

The Korea-style shaved sweet ice dessert has for years been picked as one of the must-eat foods by foreigners traveling to Korea, they said.

Write to Mi-Kyoung Lee at capital@hankyung.com

Sookyung Seo edited this article.