Garak Market Packaging Green Onion, Garlic, Ginger, Dried Red Pepper Pallet Stacking and Shipping

From October 2, palletized loading shipments allowed; from December 4, non-palletized shipments prohibited... Only palletized entry permitted for Vegetable Building 2 items under facility modernization project

[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] Seoul Agro-Fisheries & Food Corporation (President Moon Young-pyo) announced that starting from October 2, palletized shipments will be implemented for packaged green onions, garlic, ginger, and dried chili peppers traded at Garak Market, and from December 4, non-palletized shipments will be prohibited.

A significant volume of packaged green onions, garlic, ginger, and dried chili peppers is already being shipped after pallet stacking.

First, packaged green onions, which account for about 20% of the total green onion volume, are boxed, so pallet stacking is expected to pose little difficulty. However, since most shippers of packaged green onions have small shipment volumes and cannot form single pallets, they are being encouraged to form fully standardized shipment pallets through system shipments and joint shipments.

Garlic and ginger have a direct transaction rate with intermediate wholesalers (exceptional transactions outside the market) of about 80%, so palletized shipments are actively carried out to allow wholesalers to distribute immediately. Most of these go through processing facilities for packaging and other tasks, making pallet shipments feasible.

More than 90% of the total garlic shipment volume is peeled garlic, with storage garlic being peeled in separate facilities before delivery, indicating that most operations are scaled up and palletized shipments are already in place.

Ginger is also mostly stored, sorted, and boxed in separate facilities before being shipped stacked on pallets.

Dried chili peppers have a large volume relative to their weight, making stacking more than two pallets difficult. Therefore, active support for the development of separate containers will be provided to promote pallet stacking.

The modernized Vegetable Building 2, scheduled for completion in the second half of next year, will operate as a temperature-controlled facility (24?28℃ in summer, 10℃ in winter), where vehicles cannot enter the building, and transactions will be possible only by pallets. Therefore, palletized shipments of packaged green onions, garlic, ginger, and dried chili peppers, which are traded items in Vegetable Building 2, must be established this year to ensure smooth transactions from next year.

By implementing palletized shipments, work can be completed quickly using forklifts, which is expected to significantly alleviate parking and traffic problems within the market.

The corporation will provide shippers with a subsidy of 3,000 KRW per pallet (2,000 KRW from the corporation and 1,000 KRW from the wholesale market corporation) for three years to facilitate the smooth establishment of palletized shipments.

Additionally, research and development of various containers will be supported to enable efficient pallet stacking by item.

Kang Sung-soo, head of the Logistics Innovation Team, stated, “Although rising labor and raw material costs have made conditions difficult at production sites, considering the urgent need to not delay palletized shipments any further, we ask shippers to actively cooperate.”