February 16, 2004

 

 

Chicken Sales in South Korea On Road To Recovery

 

Chicken consumption in South Korea is showing signs of recovery following the country's bird flu outbreaks, industry sources said Monday.

 

Hyundai Department Store's Cheonho branch in eastern Seoul sold all of its 150 chickens last Saturday, a large improvement on its daily average sales of 30 after the bird flu scare started to sweep the nation in December, the sources said.

 

The department store's Sinchon branch also saw sales of 100 and 150 chickens on Friday and Saturday, respectively, up to seven times higher than usual daily sales of 20 or 30.

 

"Consumers' reaction to our chicken promotion event is really good," a company official said. "We plan to bring in twice as many chickens."

 

The increase in sales is largely due to the "buy one, get one free" event the department store has been holding since last Friday, according to the sources.

 

Chicken sales also increased at other retailers throughout the nation.

 

Lotte Department Store saw total sales of chickens surge nearly six-fold from the previous week to 9 million won (US$7,800) on Friday and Saturday.

 

Sales of chickens at discount store E-Mart also increased to 95 million won during the weekend, nearly 80 percent of the level from the same period last year.

 

Discounters Lotte Mart and Homeplus also saw chicken sales increase 133 percent and 45 percent, respectively, over the weekend from a week ago.

 

The country's largest chicken processor Halim International saw sales recover to nearly 70 percent of the level before the outbreak of bird flu.

 

Daily sales, which stood at 70,000 birds last week, surged to 200,000 on Friday and 250,000 on Saturday, and sales of processed chicken products also increased nearly 15 percent from the previous week last weekend.

 

Buoyed by increasing chicken consumption, local retailers are preparing to introduce more promotional events.

 

E-Mart will offer chickens and chicken parts at a discount rate as low as 35 percent starting Thursday until March 1.

 

Lotte Mart will offer a discount rate of 40 percent from Feb. 19-25.