"'Maungobi' Changes the Dining Table? Fresh Food Spending Falls, Only Egg Consumption Rises"

Embrain Purchase Deep Data analyzes panel consumer spending data
Estimated fresh food spending fell 2.3% year on year from January to July
Growth of around 10% in each of the past two years has stalled
Driven by high prices and the spread of smal

Estimated spending on fresh food, a category that major online and offline retailers have been working to promote, has turned downward. The decline is seen as the result of several factors converging: high prices have made eating at home a burden, consumers are eating less to manage their health, and shoppers are increasingly buying only the small quantities they need. In contrast, spending on rice and eggs, staples on the dining table, rose despite prices being higher than in previous years.

Consumers look at eggs on display at a large supermarket in Seoul. Yonhap News Agency

According to Embrain Purchase Deep Data, compiled by market research firm Embrain through analysis of personal consumption data and purchase receipts from 20,000 panelists, estimated spending by those panelists on fresh food across major online and offline retail channels—including hypermarkets, chain and cooperative supermarkets, convenience stores, and e-commerce platforms—fell 2.3% in January-July this year from the same period a year earlier. On a full-year basis, estimated spending on fresh food had risen 8.7% in 2024 and 10.5% in 2025 from the respective previous years, but the upward trend reversed this year.

"Demand for stocking up on fresh food in large quantities, as in the past, has declined. As buying small quantities as needed becomes more common, particularly among one- and two-person households, spending on these products appears to have fallen," an industry official said.

Consumer purchasing patterns for fresh food differed between online and offline channels. In the year through July, starting in August last year, spending on fresh food at offline stores rose 2.2% from the previous 12-month period, while the number of purchases fell 3.6%. Over the same period, online spending and the number of purchases increased 3.5% and 3.3%, respectively. At offline stores, consumers shopped less often but spent more per trip; online, spending rose along with the increase in purchase frequency. This is seen as a result of consumers preferring online channels over offline stores when buying small quantities of fresh food.

Among individual grocery items, eggs and rice recorded particularly strong spending growth. In the year through July, starting in August last year, spending on eggs rose 9.1% from the previous 12-month period, while spending on regular rice grew 13.8%—well above the 2.5% increase in total spending on fresh food. At convenience stores in particular, eggs accounted for 48.8% of all fresh-food spending, nearly half.

Notably, consumption of these products increased even as their prices rose above levels seen in previous years. According to the Korea Institute for Animal Products Quality Evaluation and the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation, among others, the average annual consumer price of 30 XL eggs stood at 7,135 won as of October, up 5.1% from a year earlier and 7.1% from the average for the past five years, excluding the highest and lowest prices. The price of a 20-kilogram bag of premium-grade rice also climbed to 62,300 won, up 5.9% year over year and 12.8% above the five-year average. Nevertheless, sales of XL eggs totaled approximately 354.73 million from January through August this year, up 38.5% from the same period last year.

"With not only dining-out costs but also prices across the broader food sector, including processed foods, on the rise, consumers facing greater financial pressure appear to have focused their grocery shopping on staples for the dining table," an industry official said.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.