Kimchi gets U.S. government's endorsement as exports break records

The U.S. government now recommends kimchi: Federal dietary guidelines published in January are the first to name the Korean staple.

Kimchi is grouped in the new guidelines along with sauerkraut, kefir and miso as fermented foods that support a diverse gut microbiome. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2025-2030, issued by the Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture, set the framework federal agencies use for school meals and nutrition assistance programs.

The endorsement came in a record year for kimchi exports. Korea shipped $164.4 million worth of kimchi last year, the most ever, and sold it to 102 countries, the first time that number has hit triple digits, Korea Customs Service trade data show.

For Korean immigrants, the shift is visible on the shelf. A man surnamed Heo, who has lived in the United States for 22 years, no longer misses the taste of home because kimchi is easy to find almost anywhere.

“If you use the online markets Weee! and H Mart, you don't have to go to a [brick and mortar] Korean grocery store yourself,” Heo said Sunday. “There's a lot of variety, too — vegan kimchi, mukeunji [aged kimchi], yeolmu [young summer radish] kimchi.”

Heo said the appeal now runs well beyond Korean households, and related the story of a non-Korean friend's mother who was ill: “She started eating kimchi to look after her health and said she got better,” Heo said. “Americans eating kimchi is an everyday thing now.”

Korean food companies are reporting the same pull. Pulmuone said Sunday that kimchi sales at its U.S. unit rose 12.3 percent in the first half from a year earlier. Jongga, the Daesang brand that leads Korea's kimchi exports, sold about $90 million abroad last year, nearly triple its $32 million in 2017.

Kimchi has become YouTube material as well, with clips explaining how to make it drawing millions of views. One video drew particular attention: In it, a foreign man boasts that marrying a Korean woman means he gets to eat every kind of kimchi there is.

Hotel and travel companies are also moving in on the action. Walkerhill Hotels & Resorts will ship its premium Supex Kimchi to the United States for the first time. Its napa cabbage, green onion and mustard leaf kimchi all go on sale Friday.

Lotte Duty Free became the first duty-free operator to carry a kimchi brand. Lotte Hotel Kimchi went on sale at its Gimpo International Airport store on July 17 and will expand to Terminal 2 of Incheon International Airport on Aug. 12, so visitors can pick up a jar inside the airport on their way out.

The range of kimchi products is widening as well. At the Natural Products Expo West in the United States in March, Pulmuone worked with chef Edward Lee on Kimchi Soondubu Shakshuka, a take on the Middle Eastern classic made with tofu, as well as on Soymilk Kimchi Bibim Myun, a kimchi version of a cold noodle dish, which were both well received. CJ CheilJedang, known abroad for its Bibigo kimchi, has been selling an All-purpose Kimchi Cooking Sauce since last year to restaurants and caterers overseas. Kimchi has even reached the snack aisle in Lotte Wellfood's Ssalo Chip rice crisps in a kimchi pancake flavor and in Orion's Jijimi, a crisp built to taste like a Korean savory pancake.

Kimchi keeps fermenting after it leaves the plant, so weeks in transit can change what reaches a shelf abroad.

“Kimchi is the food that represents Korea more than any other, and it will keep growing as curiosity about K-culture and Korean food increases and as trust in Korean food deepens,” said Ha Sang-do, a food science and technology professor at Chung-Ang University.

“But this is a fermented food whose taste varies enormously depending on how it is distributed, stored and eaten, so standardization is something the industry has to keep working on.”

BY KANG BO-HYUN [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]