{"topic_id":"market_stats_kr_2024","category":"kr-market-stats","context":"---\ntopic_id: market_stats_kr_2024\ncategory: kr-market-stats\ntitle: \"South Korea — USDA GAIN & AAFC 2024: dog+cat food market 1.69T KRW (2022); 2023 retail US$1.5B; imports US$307M\"\nlang: en\nsource: \"USDA Foreign Agricultural Service GAIN report KS2024-0001 'South Korea Pet Food Report' (Seoul ATO, 2024-08-20) + Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada 'Pet food trends in South Korea' (agriculture.canada.ca); first-hand government reports, pulled 2026-08-18 (Tavily /extract)\"\nsource_file: pdf-raw/market-stats/kr_usda_gain_ks2024_0001_2026-08-18.txt\nsource_document: \"USDA FAS GAIN KS2024-0001 (South Korea Pet Food Report) + AAFC South Korea pet-food trends\"\ncitation:\n  authority: \"USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (GAIN) + Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada\"\n  title: \"South Korea — USDA GAIN & AAFC 2024: dog+cat food market 1.69T KRW (2022); 2023 retail US$1.5B; imports US$307M\"\n  url: \"https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=South+Korea+Pet+Food+Report_Seoul+ATO_Korea+-+Republic+of_KS2024-0001\"\n  retrieved: \"2026-08-18\"\n  ref: \"USDA FAS GAIN KS2024-0001; AAFC Pet food trends in South Korea\"\n  doc_type: \"published government reports (first-hand, 🟢)\"\n  needs_review: false\nauthority_tier: T1\nauthority_tier_basis: \"manual:USDA FAS GAIN (US government) + AAFC (Canadian government) reports\"\nauthority_tier_date: 2026-08-18\ndate_parsed: 2026-08-18\ntokens_estimated: 470\nverification:\n  method: substring_match\n  claims: 13\n  passed: 13\n  date: 2026-08-18\n---\n\n# South Korea — pet-food market size, growth and trade (2023/2024)\n\nSources: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service GAIN report KS2024-0001 \"South Korea Pet Food Report\" (Seoul ATO, 2024-08-20) and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada \"Pet food trends in South Korea\" (agriculture.canada.ca) — both first-hand government reports, pulled 2026-08-18. All figures verbatim from the two source files.\n\n## Domestic market size\n- \"In 2022, the market size for dog and cat food was 1.69 trillion KRW (1,308 million USD) up 71 percent compared to the number from 2017 of 988 billion KRW (874 million USD).\" (USDA GAIN; USDA notes the KRW→USD conversion uses the 2022 average rate of 1,291.95 KRW/USD.)\n- \"South Korea was ranked the fourteenth-largest market in the world, reaching US$1.5 billion in 2023, representing an increase by a CAGR of 11.3% (2018 to 2023).\" (AAFC; AAFC's figure is total pet-food retail sales, a broader basis than USDA's dog-and-cat-food market — the two are presented as reported, not reconciled.)\n\n## 2023 retail sales by species (AAFC)\n- \"The retail sales of dog food reached US$875.6 million in 2023, at a CAGR of 7.6% from 2018 to 2023.\"\n- \"Current value sales of cat food grow by 18.0% (CAGR, 2018 to 2023) to US$614.6 million.\"\n- \"other pet food only accounts for less than 1.5% of this total\"\n\n## Imports (2023)\n- \"In 2023, Korea's imports of dog and cat food reached 307 million USD with a year-on-year decrease of 11.45 percent. On a volume basis, Korea imported 59,392 tons of dog and cat food, down 16.47 percent from the previous year.\" (USDA GAIN — first import decline in over a decade.)\n- \"South Korea was the twenty-first largest importer of pet food, reaching US$307.5 million in 2023.\" (AAFC; corroborates USDA GAIN.)\n- \"China, US and Thailand were the largest suppliers of pet food to South Korea in 2023 with values of US$100.2 million (32.6% market share), US$48.8 million (15.9% market share) and US$37.6 million (12.2% market share) respectively.\" (AAFC)\n- \"China with a 32.57 percent market share, the United States with 15.96 percent, Thailand with 12.38 percent, and Japan with 7.49 percent by value.\" (USDA GAIN — consistent with AAFC.)\n- \"The ratio of dog to cat food in imported pet food is approximately 60 percent versus 40 percent\"\n- \"imported products, holding two-thirds of the market\" (traditional structure; local competition contributed to the 2023 import dip)\n\n## Honest gaps / notes\n- Pet **population / ownership** for Korea is covered separately by topic `kr_pet_rearing_survey_2025` (KOSTAT-based rearing survey), not repeated here.\n- No first-hand 2024 total retail figure is quoted; the latest full-year retail market size in these sources is AAFC's 2023 US$1.5B. A 2028 forecast (US$2.1B) seen in secondary search snippets is **not** present in the extracted first-hand sources and is omitted.\n- USDA GAIN's KRW market-size figure is \"dog and cat food\" only; AAFC's US$1.5B is total pet-food retail — different scopes, both reported as published.\n\nSource: `pdf-raw/market-stats/kr_usda_gain_ks2024_0001_2026-08-18.txt` and `pdf-raw/market-stats/kr_aafc_pet_food_trends_2026-08-18.txt`, pulled 2026-08-18.\n","sources":["USDA FAS GAIN KS2024-0001 — South Korea — USDA GAIN & AAFC 2024: dog+cat food market 1.69T KRW (2022); 2023 retail US$1.5B; imports US$307M (retrieved 2026-08-18)"],"source":{"authority":"USDA FAS GAIN KS2024-0001","title":"South Korea — USDA GAIN & AAFC 2024: dog+cat food market 1.69T KRW (2022); 2023 retail US$1.5B; imports US$307M","url":"https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=South+Korea+Pet+Food+Report_Seoul+ATO_Korea+-+Republic+of_KS2024-0001","retrieved":"2026-08-18","ref":"","doc_type":"official PDF","source_document":"USDA FAS GAIN KS2024-0001 (South Korea Pet Food Report) + AAFC South Korea pet-food trends","verification_file":"pdf-raw/market-stats/kr_usda_gain_ks2024_0001_2026-08-18.txt"},"source_document":"USDA FAS GAIN KS2024-0001 (South Korea Pet Food Report) + AAFC South Korea pet-food trends","source_file":"pdf-raw/market-stats/kr_usda_gain_ks2024_0001_2026-08-18.txt","trust":{"authority_tier":"T1","fidelity":"verbatim","license":null,"display_grade":"A"},"tokens_estimated":855,"generated_at":null,"tip":"Use /api/v1/topics to discover more topics. /api/v1/nutrient for precise single-point queries. /api/v1/cross_compare for 2-3 standard comparisons."}