Food prices continue to soar, with the price of instant noodles rising the most since the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009.
According to Statistics Korea on Monday, the consumer price index of instant noodles stood at 124-point-04 last month, up 13-point-one percent from a year earlier, to climb the most on-year since jumping 14-point-three percent in 2009.
The yearly price increase, which expanded from three-point-five percent last September to eleven-point-seven percent in October, has now stayed above ten percent for eight consecutive months.
Instant noodle producers have cited the rising costs of raw materials as the reason for the price hikes, with the country's largest producer, Nongshim, increasing the average price by eleven-point-three percent last September, followed by Paldo, Ottogi and Samyang by between nine-point-seven and eleven percent.
Despite overall inflation dropping to three-point-three percent last month, inflation in the prices of over one in four food items has remained in the ten-percent range.