Market report

Korea Chocolate Import Market

Chocolate, milk and white chocolate, compound chocolate and chocolate products imported into South Korea.

Updated Aug 2026 · from official Korean import declarations

Report period
Jul 2025Aug 2026
14 months of declarations
Total shipments
11,693
import declarations 2%
vs. previous 6 months (5,463)
Suppliers
611
overseas manufacturers 16%
vs. previous 6 months (519)
Korean buyers
375
importing companies 11%
vs. previous 6 months (311)
New entrants
34
first-time suppliers
first shipped in the last 3 months
Key takeaways
  • Korea logged 5,572 chocolate import declarations in the last six months, up 2% on the six months before.
  • Belgium is the largest origin with 14.5% of all shipments (1,692).
  • Switzerland is growing fastest among established origins — up 122% over the last three months against the three before.
  • Türkiye is losing ground, down 49% over the same window.
  • 34 overseas suppliers shipped chocolate to Korea for the first time in the last three months.

Monthly shipments — chocolate

2%
last 6 months vs
the 6 before

Each declaration is one customs filing, not one container — a useful proxy for how often a market is being served rather than for tonnage.

Where it comes from

Belgium14.5%
France11.7%
Switzerland11.0%
Italy8.7%
China8.2%
Germany6.0%
Malaysia5.6%
Japan5.2%
United States3.8%
Türkiye2.8%

Origin share and momentum

OriginShipmentsShare3m vs prior 3m
Belgium1,69214.5% 5%
France1,37011.7% 6%
Switzerland1,28111.0% 122%
Italy1,0168.7% 1%
China9588.2% 25%
Germany6996.0% 8%
Malaysia6565.6%level
Japan6105.2% 3%
United States4473.8% 65%
Türkiye3302.8% 49%

Growth is suppressed where the earlier window holds fewer than 20 shipments — a move from three to nine is not a trend.

Top suppliers to Korea

#Overseas manufacturerShips
1LADERACH (SCHWEIZ) AG991
2VALRHONA SAS419
3MANUFACTURE BELGE DE CHOCOLATS SRL/BV315
4CFCC207
5HERSHEY MALAYSIA SDN. BHD.207
6BARRY CALLEBAUT MANUFACTURING HALLE BVBA184
7BELCOLADE183
8BARRY CALLEBAUT BELGIUM NV170
9LA MAISON DU CHOCOLAT169
10MARS FOODS(JIAXING) CO., LTD.165
This section is locked

375 Korean companies import chocolate. This report does not name them.

KoreanImportData tracks every one of them — who they buy from, which origins they switched to, how often they ship and when they last imported. Search the full register by product, company or country, in English.

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These twelve are the biggest categories, not the only ones. The register covers every food, beverage, nutraceutical and packaging item type Korea imports.

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Method and coverage

Figures are counts of individual import declarations lodged with the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, covering Jul 2025 to Aug 2026. This report covers the official item types Chocolate products, Compound chocolate, Chocolate, Milk chocolate, White chocolate — matched on the declared item type only, never on product-name text, so unrelated goods cannot be pulled in by a keyword.

Origin is the declared country of manufacture, not the country the goods were shipped from, which can differ where a distributor re-exports.

Company and product names are translated or transliterated from the official Korean record and may be imperfect; the Korean record is authoritative. One manufacturer can appear under more than one plant or spelling.

The register is reloaded monthly and this page is rebuilt with it. Figures here will differ from a report you read last month, by design.

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