Who can import food into Korea?

Only a company registered with Korea's MFDS as an imported-food business can file the import declaration. In practice an overseas supplier sells to a registered Korean importer, who handles clearance.

How do I find Korean importers for my product?

Korea publishes customs clearance records, so you can see which Korean companies already import your product category, from which countries and at what price.

Is the customs price the same as the purchase price?

No. It is the declared clearance value, so it differs from the actual purchase price depending on freight and insurance terms. Use it as a market benchmark, not an absolute.

How to Export Food to Korea — Buyers, Prices and Customs Data

If you want to sell food into Korea, the first question is not "how do I ship it" — it is "who in Korea already buys this, and at what price?" Korea publishes its imported-food customs clearance records, so that question is answerable before you spend anything.

Who actually imports food into Korea

Only a company registered with Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) as an imported-food business can file the import declaration. So an overseas supplier almost always sells to a registered Korean importer, who handles clearance and domestic distribution.

In 2025 there were 17,273 Korean companies with actual import records. That is your buyer universe — and it is public.

What Korea's public data tells you

Each clearance record carries the importer, the overseas manufacturer, the product type, the exporting country, the date, and the cleared weight and value. Two things follow from that:

① Unit price — cleared value divided by cleared weight, in USD/kg. Korea's data covers 2,417 product types. ② Buyer discovery — you can list the Korean importers already buying your category, and see which countries they buy from today.

Worked example — mango, 2026

Import unit price into Korea by exporting country:

Exporting country	Unit price	Volume
Thailand	$3.32/kg	15,686,497 kg
Peru	$4.87/kg	4,000,911 kg
Vietnam	$2.80/kg	2,673,741 kg
Brazil	$4.93/kg	2,019,240 kg
Taiwan	$6.17/kg	594,238 kg

The spread between the highest (Taiwan $6.17) and lowest (Vietnam $2.80) is 2.2x for the same product name. Variety, form (fresh vs frozen/processed) and volume explain most of it — which is why unit price should never be read without volume next to it.

The catch — masked values

Korea's raw published data masks part of the figures, so many rows cannot be turned into a unit price as-is. TAAMs reconstructs them by cross-checking across extended periods: 97,289 of 151,409 daily price rows (64.3%) are reconstructed values — numbers you cannot get from the raw source alone.

A practical sequence

① Find the Korean importers already buying your product category. ② Check which countries supply them today and at what unit price — that is your price ceiling. ③ Approach the importers whose current source country you can beat on price, quality or lead time.

Check it yourself

Search products, importers, exporters and countries on the TAAMs home, or browse the latest status by country and product in the import reports.

As of 2026-08-04 · based on MFDS customs clearance data