Ginseng Loses Its Crown: 500 Billion Won Vanishes from Korea’s Health Supplement Market
Creatrip Team
3 months ago
Korea’s health supplement market reached about 5.96 trillion won in 2025, but traditional red ginseng (hong-sam) has declined sharply as consumers shift to targeted vitamins and functional products. Red ginseng’s share of purchase spending fell from 25.9% in 2021 to around 16% in 2025, with sales dropping from 1.47 trillion won to 953.6 billion won—a loss near 500 billion won over five years. Younger consumers (20s–30s) prefer single-purpose supplements like vitamins, magnesium, and probiotics to address fatigue, gut health, energy, and sleep, viewing ginseng as old-fashioned. As a result, multi-ingredient and novel-function products have grown, and the market’s top-five ingredient share shrank from 60% to 51% while the “other” category rose to 32.8%. Major ginseng companies show weaker domestic sales and are diversifying portfolios and expanding exports to offset stagnation.
