A visit to Seoul's wholesale fish market tells the story
High water temperatures, fuel costs squeeze catches
At 8,264 won a piece, only frozen squid fills hypermarket shelves
"No squid? None came in."
At 10:30 p.m. on June 1 at the Seoul Agro-Fisheries & Food Corporation wholesale market in Songpa-gu, traders moved briskly ahead of an 11 p.m. auction. Styrofoam crates packed with hairtail, mackerel and pomfret filled the auction floor. Squid — whose fishing ban had just been lifted — was nowhere to be seen. A wholesale dealer surnamed Jeong, 58, led a reporter to a corner of the hall. There, just three or four boxes of squid sat stacked.
"A few boxes came in Thursday, but the quantity was so small they were already gone," Jeong said. "There wasn't even enough to hold an auction." No squid went under the hammer that night. He added that the limited supply partly reflected the timing: only squid caught by jigging — a method using multiple hooks on a single line rather than nets — had arrived in the immediate aftermath of the fishing ban being lifted.
Starting Wednesday, squid caught by set-net fishing off the east coast — from Gangneung, Mukho and other ports along the East Sea — began arriving at the market. A squid auctioneer at the wholesale market said the first net-caught shipment of 1,300 boxes traded at between 40,000 and 48,000 won (about $32) per box. "Still, the volume is lower than last year," the auctioneer said, adding that persistently high water temperatures left the outlook dim.
Squid was a fixture on Korean dinner tables just a decade ago. Now it has earned the nickname "gold squid" — a play on "geum," the Korean word for gold — as rising sea temperatures driven by climate change and a drop in fishing activity have pushed prices consistently higher.
Coastal squid catches have been falling since 2017, when they first dropped below 100,000 metric tons. According to the Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS), the haul shrank to 36,578 tons in 2022, 23,375 tons in 2023 and 13,568 tons in 2024. Last year brought a brief rebound to 31,006 tons, but this year the slump has returned. In May alone, the catch came to just 11 tons — down 85 percent from 77 tons in the same month last year and 93 percent below the historical average. Wholesale transaction volumes at the Garak market have also fallen 62.5 percent, from 480,000 boxes in 2020 to 180,000 boxes last year.
Rising sea temperatures are widely cited as the primary cause. The National Institute of Fisheries Science projected that East Sea coastal water temperatures from June 1 through June 6 would average 17 degrees Celsius — about 3 degrees higher than last year. The South Sea and West Sea are also running 1.7 degrees and 1.2 degrees above year-earlier levels, respectively.
Fuel costs linked to Middle East tensions have compounded the problem. The price of tax-exempt fishing fuel jumped 57 percent in a single month, from 175,940 won per 200 liters in March to 276,180 won in April. A market official surnamed Yang, 67, said fishing boats were heading out less often because there was little profit left after paying for fuel. "As vessels cut back on trips, squid supply takes the hit," Yang said.
Shrinking supply has driven up prices. According to the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation's agricultural price information system KAMIS, the retail price of a large squid rose from 4,419 won in August last year to 8,264 won in March this year. Annual average prices have climbed steadily as well — 6,928 won in 2024, 7,104 won in 2025 and 7,932 won so far this year.
Fresh squid has also become hard to find at hypermarkets. As of May, the wholesale price for fresh domestic squid was up 10 to 20 percent from a year earlier. One hypermarket official said fresh domestic squid had been available only on a limited basis since mid-May, with frozen squid from Argentina making up the bulk of supply. "We're hoping domestic volumes pick up now that the fishing ban has been lifted," the official said.
siuu@heraldcorp.com
