Reason Behind Sky-High Pork Prices… Over 20% Hiked Through 6-Year Collusion

[Anchor]

A prosecution investigation has revealed that pork suppliers to major supermarket chains colluded to drive up prices. They engaged in price-fixing totaling a staggering 1.2 trillion won over a period of 6 years by establishing price floors.

Reporter Yoo Soo-Hwan has the details.

[Reporter]

The pork display section at a major supermarket.

Shoppers continue to reach for pork belly and pork shoulder.

There were times when pork prices became so burdensome that people even used the term "gold belly" due to soaring costs.

[Lim Sun-ja / Gangseo-gu, Seoul: We enjoy eating pork belly a lot. It was so expensive back then that people said imported beef was cheaper, so we completely substituted it with beef and ate that instead.]

In April, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) caught nine distribution companies that supply pork to major supermarkets conspiring by setting a minimum supply price floor, imposed 3.1 billion won in fines, and requested a prosecution investigation.

According to the prosecution's investigation, they colluded on pork supply prices over hundreds of occasions across six years from 2017 to 2023, driving up market prices by more than 20% at a minimum.

Through a secret Telegram group chat created for the collusion, they shared floor prices by item such as pork belly and pork shoulder, and conversation records were captured showing them unanimously replying "Yes" to questions like, "How about raising it compared to last week's unit price?"

When the FTC investigation began, circumstances showed that they deleted the secret Telegram chatrooms while destroying evidence and preparing for the investigation with remarks such as, "Just say you don't know much" and "If you deny it, that's the end of it."

[Lee Jung-ho / Chief of Criminal Division 6, Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office: After setting up a communication system for collusion, when a person in charge changed, they handed over the collusive practices to their successor, and when a new company started supplying, they even made that company join the collusion...] estimating the collusion scale to reach 1.2 trillion won over the past six years, the prosecution indicted six pork distributors and 12 executives and employees on charges of violating the Fair Trade Act.

(Video reporting: Joo Yong-jin, Video editing: Choi Hye-ran)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.