The purpose of this study is to analyze the structure, type and outcomes of the food processing industry with ginsengs and herbs recognized to contain lots of healthy and functional components produced in farms by means of the food system approach, and to present a strategy for developing the industry.
69% of produced ginsengs and herbs (55% of produced ginsengs) are processed, and especially for processed foods. Most of provided ginsengs are produced in Korea and approximately 70% of important provided herbs are produced in Korea. It is thus regarded that the share of ginsengs and herbs produced in Korea is relatively high. Ginsengs and herbs produced in Korea are showing an increasing trend, but some of the herbs are showing a very unstable supply because of variations in harvests.
The ginseng and herb processing business is divided into ginseng food production and herb food production. It is estimated that the sales amount of gingseng foods is 950 billion won, and the sales amount of herb foods is approximately 480 billion won. In particular, the ginseng food market is growing by a ratio of 20% or so per annum in 2000s.
For ginseng foods, the concentration extract and component added product market is rapidly growing, and exemplary component added products rapidly growing include products sweetened with sugar (immersed in sugar), teas, beverages, etc., mainly with strong effects as food. It is considered that a variety of new products depending on consumers' interest in healthy living, convenience for substituting production at home, and reflecting tastes and the like are leading the market growth.
For the ginseng food production business, a few large companies occupy most of the market which has the smaller number of the intermediate scale companies. 91.9% of ginseng processing companies employ less than 10 people. The market share of the largest gingseng processing company is 40.4% which is considered very high and is getting lowered, but the market share of 10 largest companies is 67.4% which is being kept at a similar level. That is, the market share of the next largest company except the largest company is showing a gradual increase.
Added values of the ginseng food production business are 237 billion won in 2008, are showing an increase of 11.5% in average per annum. The ratio of value added to the sales amount is 41.1% which is higher than that of the food production business.
Labor productivity of the ginseng food production business (amount of value added per capita) is 88.54 million won which is lower than the average of the food production business and capital productivity thereof is 1.33 which is higher than that of the average of the food production business. As the capital equipment ratio is getting higher, labor productivity is recently showing an increase but the capital productivity is sluggish. It is necessary to do more capital investment which is analyzed to be effective for medium-sized companies of relatively small capital scale but high capital productivity in particular. The ginseng food production business shows high profitability and low debt ratios and is considered to have money for investment, but it is necessary to take measures for presenting visions for the ginseng food industry and attracting investment from private sectors.
The area for cultivating ginsengs by contract is 35% of the ginseng cultivation area which is higher than that of other farm products, but the area for herbs for contract cultivation was investigated only 19% which indicates inactivated raw herb supply by contract production. Preference of the processing companies for ginsengs and herbs produced in Korea was even higher to imported goods in terms of quality, safety and health functionality, but there was no significant difference in terms of satisfaction in raw material prices or stable supply. Bean paste and ginseng processing companies tend to develop their own new products and there is thus a limit in developing functional high quality products responding to consumers' demand because they do not have a required number of specialized staffs.
It was investigated that difficulty in selling products is due to frequent unfair competition with large-scale distributors who request discounted prices in the bean paste and processed ginseng market.
For industrial development, it was shown that settling difficulty in finance and capital supply is important. In particular, the most difficult thing was restricted investment resulting from insufficient facilities and the like at the time of product development, inauguration of business or starting new business. Meanwhile, for the ginseng and herb industry, one important thing is insufficient ideas and technology for developing new products.
It was shown that consumers prefer liquid ginseng extract and sacheted liquid ginseng based on red ginsengs. Consumers' first consideration was functions related to healthy living from the products, and they get information of the products from acquaintances, relatives or the Internet, and mainly purchase the products from health product shops or large-scale distributors.
Consumers prefer products made in Korea to imported ones in terms of functionality, nutrients, hygiene, and quality of the ginseng and herb products. Analysis of differentiation and significance for characteristics of processed ginseng and herb foods showed importance in safety, the country of origin of the raw material, effect, efficacy, components of nutrients, and methods of eco-friendly cultivation. Meanwhile, consumers showed the most interest in the efficacy of the products among descriptions of the processed ginseng and herb products but did not trust the details marked.
The direction for developing the ginseng and herb processing industry is, first, to orient it to a technology-intensive high-value added functional food industry, and, second, to enhance the competitive power of general foods using the functional components of ginsengs and herbs. Strategies for development are. i) differentiation of production by establishing companies with competitive ideas and initiating new business, ii) enriching enterprise scales by cooperation between the same business and companies and encouraging investment, iii) more R&D by the Korean government to attract investment for R&D from private sectors to construct a network for maximizing investment efficiency, iv) encouraging networking among enterprises, farmers (associations), local bodies, research, supporting institutions, and universities, to address the problem of isolation due to limited access to information of small-scale companies, v) complementing failure in the market and constructing fundamental industrial infrastructures. Schemes for development based on the aforementioned strategies include, first, intensifying the basis for encouraging establishment of an enterprise and new business, second, cooperation among companies and promotion of investment, third, encouraging strategic R&D investment for developing functional material and products, fourth, intensifying financial support by the government, fifth, construction of statistics and information infrastructures, sixth, establishing the marking system for functional foods, and, seventh, management of distribution for encouraging consumers to by more processed ginseng and herb products and enhancing fund raising for association members.


Researchers:Yong-Sun Lee and Sun-lyung Lee
E-mail Address: yslee@krei.re.kr