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| Foreigners browse drie laver food products known as "gim" in an asile at Lotte Mart near Seoul Station in downtown Seoul. / Courtesy of Lotte Mart |
By Kim Ji-soo
When top Korean actress Ko Hyun-jung returned to the entertainment industry in 2004, people asked her what her beauty secrets were. Her reply was "kimchi jjigae" (kimchi stew) with "gim," or dried laver, indicating that she stuck to a standard Korean diet.
Gim toasted on briquette fire, drizzled with sesame seed oil and then cut into small rectangular pieces is a common feature of Korean dishes, especially in lunch boxes, before automation in the 1980s led to the development of various dried laver products.
Korean laver food items are now part of people's diet around the world, consumed with either rice or as snacks.
Because of the Lotte Mart's strategic location near Seoul Station, it is often visited by foreign tourists for groceries and sundries.
On Wednesday morning this week, an aisle was stacked with various seaweed items, ranging from the classic dried Korean laver that is toasted, oiled and salted, to other varieties, including kimchi-flavored gim, Korean barbecue-flavored gim and snack-style gim, made by various manufacturers, from the conglomerate CJ Group to Dongwon's Yangban brand and Pulmuone.
The snack-style gim comes in even more varieties like gim peppered with anchovies and brown rice to wasabi-flavored and honey-butter flavored ones. One Lotte Mart worker opined that Pulmuone's anchovy-topped laver snack was the bestselling gim in the store.
"I usually buy Korean kimchi and gim when I come. I like spicy food, so I buy kimchi and gim, but today I bought the gim," said Bobby Li, 21, a tourist from Hong Kong, who was shopping at the Lotte Mart shop near the Seoul Station. How does he consume the dried laver?
"As a snack," Li said.
Ikue and two of her friends from Fukuoka, Japan, were in the laver aisle, debating which product to choose.
"We buy gim here, as it is tasty and cheap compared to back in Japan," Ikue said, speaking in a mixture of English and Japanese. She and her friends said they purchase the packaged gim to have with rice or as a snack. The three later ended up at the cashier with four bulk packets of gim.
The bustling gim aisle may be a small form of attestation to the popularity of Korean gim.
On Monday, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said Korea exported about $350 million worth ofgim in 2016, representing an annual 21.8 percent growth over the $60 million figure in 2007. This year, the industry is looking to export at least $500 million worth of gim.
Seizing a chance for further growth, the ministry announced that it will work with the laver industry to increase exports to more than $1 billion worth of dried laver, or a volume of 380,000 tons, annually by 2024.
The ministry has gone so far as to say that it will promote dried laver as the "semiconductor" of the Korean food products sector.
The government said it will pour 100 billion won to establish a complex for the efficient production and processing of dried laver along the country's southwestern coast, where a majority of the 2,800 growers are located.
The ministry said it will also work with the private sector to strengthen research and development on new seaweed breeds for the product.
"As an organization of growers, driers and export companies, we welcome the government's adoption of a long-term plan," said Kim Dug-sol, chairman of the Korea Laver Industry Association.
"There are not that many first-industry Korean products that maintain price competitiveness with industries in China, but dried laver is one," Kim said.
"There are about six to seven research institutions for ginseng nationwide. There are none for gim. We hope these issues will soon come up in government-private sector meetings to further promote the dried laver industry," Kim said.
Earlier this week, the ministryalong with industry people held a special event in Sejong dubbed Gim-maek Day with chef Kim Rak-hoon, who is actively creating recipes to globalize Korean gim. "Gim-maek" is a play on the word "chimaek," or the chicken and beer meal popular with Koreans and featured in K-dramas such as "My Love from the Star."
Asked his opinion of the Korean government's plans to make further efforts to promote dried laver goods worldwide, Bobby Li from Hong Kong thought for a moment and then said, "I think it has potential."
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| A Korean dried laver snack sample / Courtesy of Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries |
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