A shopper looks at milk at a grocery store in Seoul on Oct. 8, 2025. [YONHAP]
Korean milk is getting squeezed out of shopping carts as consumers increasingly turn to cheaper imported alternatives due to growing cracks in the country’s decades-old dairy pricing system.
At the same time, local companies are pushing back against the fixed volumes of milk that can be produced domestically under Korea’s raw milk quota system, even as consumption continues to decline, while others warn that surplus domestic milk would only inflate prices amid stagnant demand.
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Last year, plain milk consumption per capita fell 9.5 percent on year to 22.9 kilograms (5.87 gallons), the lowest rate in four decades, according to the Korea Dairy Committee.
