Lotte Mart stops selling American beef

Donga-A Ilbo (Seoul) | 16 July 2007

Lotte Mart Stops Selling American Beef

The Korean Alliance against the KorUS FTA made Lotte Mart located in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul suspend sales of American beef by demonstrating against U.S. beef imports in front of Lotte Mart Yeongdeungpo on July 14.

Accordingly, the number of Lotte store to stop importing American beef was brought to seven. Among 53 Lotte Marts nationwide, six of the stores, including Seoul, Ahnsung, Choongju, Sangmu in Gwangju, and Worldcup and Chungju, already suspended sales of American beef due to demonstrations opposing the Korea-U.S. FTA on July 13.

Meanwhile, Lotte Mart announced that from July 13 to 15, the sales of U.S. beef were worth about 450 million won and that its volume was about 20 tons. It is expected that the first import of 40 tons will be sold out in the morning of July 17.

Chung Sun-young, product manager of Lotte Mart, said, “Customers favor U.S. beef more than we expected and an additional 30 tons of frozen beef which is about to be imported on July 19 will be sold out early.”

Chung added, “As the U.S. beef is sold out, not only consumers who are looking for Australian origins instead of American ones are increasing, but also whole beef selling area is growing by 40 percent, which is about threefold the amount that was sold last week. Korean beef appeared to be selling as usual.