Genesis BBQ Chairman Yoon Hong-geun / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

By Kim Jae-heun

Genesis BBQ (BBQ) has come under criticism for raising the prices of its fried chicken menu items starting on May 2, breaking a promise it made last December that there will be no price hikes despite surging raw material costs, according to industry officials and consumers Sunday.

"Due to commission fees for food delivery platforms and labor cost increases, our franchisees have been constantly asking the headquarters to raise the prices of our fried chicken. Increased price hikes of food and raw materials around the world have made it unavoidable for us to increase prices," a BBQ official said.

In December, BBQ's rivals Kyochon F&B and BHC raised the prices of their fried chicken by up to 2,000 won ($1.61). At that time, many expected that BBQ would follow suit. But it decided to freeze the prices of its menu items.

"There are many reason for the company to increase product prices, but we will not do so, because BBQ does not want to pass on the price burden to its customers during the difficult time of COVID-19," a BBQ official said at the time, criticizing its two bigger rivals' decisions to charge consumers more.

BBQ's fried chicken / Courtesy of Genesis BBQ

In addition, many customers are expressing frustration over BBQ's price hike, because the company has been one of the beneficiaries of the COVID-19 pandemic over the last two years..

BBQ's sales increased 13.26 percent to 477.1 billion won and operating profit surged 14.58 percent to 60.8 billion won in 2021. As more people stayed home during government-mandated quarantines, online orders of fried chicken soared.

"All of the fried chicken franchises probably made their biggest profits ever during the past two years. BBQ does not talk about how much it benefited from COVID-19, but only mentions how much it suffered from the burden of rising food material costs. It is only trying to give an excuse to raise prices," a 33-year-old office worker surnamed Jang said.

"I am pretty sure, BBQ did not increase prices back in December because its chairman Yoon Hong-geun was the head of the South Korean delegation to the Beijing Winter Olympic in February and it wanted to maintain a good reputation and sell its chicken during the global sports event," Jang added.