Korea Inundated with Orders for Sanitary Supplies, Rice

Hand sanitizer in a supermarket in Seoul on Monday /Yonhap

Korea is inundated with orders for commodities linked to the coronavirus panic, from hand sanitizer and toilet paper to rice, which frantic shoppers have been hoarding overseas.

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Retailers here appear to have a more efficient supply network, so none of the products have run out due to panic buying, and perhaps Korean shoppers are more disciplined than elsewhere.

A staffer at Homeplus received an e-mail on March 23 from a product developer at Singapore-based e-commerce platform Qoo10 seeking "as much private brand toilet paper as possible". It took only three days to sign the contract and load 2,000 rolls of toilet paper and boxed tissue on a container ship in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province on Monday.

The city state has been suffering from an acute shortage of some daily necessities and hoarding after neighboring Malaysia sealed its borders on March 18.

Singapore imports 90 percent of its major food products from Malaysia. The Homeplus staffer said, "We've been trying hard to find overseas clients for our condiments and confectionery but never thought we'd end up exporting such a large volume of toilet paper. We're also in talks with Qoo10 to export mineral water and other daily necessities".  

Iksan in North Jeolla Province started to send 20 tons of rice a month to Hong Kong from April.

Korea had had difficulty finding export markets for its rice, which is two to three times more expensive than Chinese or Southeast Asian rice, but the coronavirus outbreak has changed that.

Gangjin in South Jeolla Province began exporting rice to Malaysia on March 30 and plans to ship 90 tons of the grain there this year.

A growing number of countries around the world have halted export of agricultural products and began stockpiling them for fear of a shortage due to the pandemic.

Vietnam, which is the world's third-largest rice exporter after India and Thailand, halted rice exports on March 24 and Cambodia followed suit on Monday.

Agricultural cooperative staff load rice for export to Hong Kong in Iksan, North Jeolla Province on April 1.

CJ Cheiljedang's dumpling factories in California and New York have been running at full capacity even at weekends since last month. Customers in the U.S. have been hoarding Korean frozen food in expectation of a lockdown.

A CJ staffer said, "Sales of dumplings, instant rice and frozen pizza have more than doubled in American supermarkets".

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said farm produce and food exports during the first three months of this year rose 5.8 percent on-year to US$1.74 billion, with processed food products accounting for 80 percent. In March alone, they rose 15.8 percent to $675 million.

Hand sanitizer is also in high demand overseas. According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, exports of the product last month surged 604.1 percent on-year to $5.69 million, the equivalent of 83.9 percent of the entire shipments last year.

"We're inundated with requests from Europe and other regions that are suffering shortages", a staffer at a cosmetics company said.