South Korea

South Korea has been living through what local media have termed "eggflation." In early 2026, the benchmark price of a tray of 30 large eggs exceeded ₩7,000 for the first time in years, a level not recorded since the large-scale avian influenza cull of 2021. The immediate trigger was another severe bird flu season — approximately ten million laying hens, more than a tenth of the national flock, were culled over the winter of 2025–26 — compounded by expensive imported feed and a won that has hovered near ₩1,500 to the dollar. Pressure has since eased somewhat: the KAMIS benchmark tracked on this page held above ₩7,000 through the summer before slipping back below that level in late September.

Structural factors are also at work. South Korea's egg industry is dominated by large, high-density cage farms, which make the country almost entirely self-sufficient in eggs. That efficiency keeps Korean prices unremarkable by global standards even when they set domestic records — which explains why the price shown here can rank mid-table worldwide while Korean consumers face a historic burden. The government's response in 2026 has included opening the door to imported fresh eggs from Thailand and the United States.

Price formation itself has come under scrutiny: South Korea's competition regulator sanctioned the national layer association for coordinating benchmark price increases between 2023 and 2025, a period in which production costs were broadly stable. The headline figure for South Korea is drawn from KAMIS, the government's agricultural price service, converted from the standard 30-egg tray, and daily price observations at major online marts are used to round out the picture.

This site began tracking South Korean prices in mid-June 2026. Expressed per 10 eggs, the KAMIS benchmark has eased gradually since then, from a monthly median of about ₩2,500 in June to roughly ₩2,310 in October, with daily readings staying between about ₩2,220 and ₩2,570. Online grocers sit well above that average: Kurly's monthly median edged up from about ₩3,810 to roughly ₩3,990 and has held there since August, while SSG's monthly medians moved between roughly ₩5,000 and ₩6,500. The Nonghyup online mall held its listing at ₩8,150 through August before lowering it to ₩6,650 by October. These gaps mainly reflect what is being measured — a national average for standard eggs versus branded, often premium packs sold online — rather than one source being out of line.

How eggs reach the shelf also shapes Korean prices. Much of the trade has traditionally passed through layers of wholesale distributors under a practice known as deferred settlement, in which the price a farm actually receives is fixed only after the eggs have been sold on, often below the quoted benchmark. Authorities have criticized the arrangement as opaque and have sought to move trading toward more transparent price discovery. At the same time, rules requiring eggs for household sale to pass through licensed grading-and-packing facilities and to carry a printed laying date have added steps, and costs, to the chain. As a result, the benchmark price, the farm-gate price and what consumers pay can diverge more in South Korea than in many other markets.