The South Korean market is adjusting to the return of the US beef with giant retailers E-Mart, Lotte Mart and Homeplus stocking American beef products in their almost 300 outlets.

The three major discount retailers have a total of 292 outlets throughout Korea and started selling US beef from 27 November.

Prior to the mad cow disease case in the US in 2003, South Korea has solely been resorting to US beef imports.

Australian beef, the other dominant beef variety in South Korea, are unaffected by the return of US beef, as sales event went up by 30 to 40 percent last week.

Homeplus said US beef is mainly being purchased by consumers aged 45 years and over, while the younger generation prefer the Australian product. In-store beef shelf space is currently divided equally between domestic Hanwoo, Australian and US beef.