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| An employee hands an order to a customer at a McDonald's drive-thru restaurant in Seoul, on Dec. 23, 2022. Korea Times file |
By Kim Jae-heun
A 34 year-old office worker surnamed Jang says that hamburgers are his favorite food and expressed his frustration over how often fast food franchises have raised the prices of their menu items recently.
"Hamburger are a popular food choice that people like to eat when they don't know what to have for lunch or dinner because it's cheap and the restaurants are easy to find. But now a Big Mac, burger only, costs 5,200 won ($4.09). That was the price of the whole set with a drink and french fries around a year ago."
A 59-year-old taxi driver surnamed Kim said he hates how fast food companies are putting the cost burden onto consumers by constantly raising their prices.
"I know the price of raw materials has soared internationally and companies are facing hardships to cover rising labor costs and logistics expenses too. But they can't just continuously raise the price of their menu items and pass on the cost to customers. They are hiking prices too often."
McDonald's Korea and No Brand Burger, Shinsegae Food's fast food restaurant chains, have decided to increase their menu prices by an average of 5.4 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively, from Feb. 15 and 16.
As Kim said, both franchises raised the prices of their hamburger sets last August and they did it again just six months later.
Last week, local hamburger franchise Lotteria increased the price of its menu items by an average of 5.1 percent in just seven months, followed by KFC with about a 3.7 percent increase.
"Previously, fast food restaurant chains raised their prices once a year but that cycle has been shortened to six or seven months recently," a local food firm official said.
Shinsegae Food said it had no choice as all the costs in operating hamburger franchise restaurants have increased including raw materials, logistics and labor costs.
"We have made a decision on price increases so as to maintain profits for our franchisees. Price hikes were inevitable," a Shinsegae Food official said.
McDonald's Korea also agreed that the continuous rise in costs forced the company to raise its menu item prices.
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