Dubai chewy cookie frenzy sends pistachio prices in South Korea soaring
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Dujjonku is made by combining pistachio cream and kadaif, a thread-like Middle Eastern pastry made from flour, cornstarch and salt.
PHOTO: KCULTURE_COM/INSTAGRAM
SEOUL – The ongoing craze for Dubai chewy cookies, known in South Korea as “dujjonku”, has driven up prices of the key ingredients, squeezing retailers and ordinary consumers alike.
Dujjonku is made by combining pistachio cream and kadaif, a thread-like Middle Eastern pastry made from flour, cornstarch and salt. The mixture is then shaped into rounds and wrapped in melted marshmallow blended with cocoa powder. Unlike typical cookies, it has a dense, chewy texture rather than a crisp or crumbly bite.
According to Fallcent, a mobile app that tracks price changes on South Korea’s largest e-commerce platform, Coupang, some pistachio products have seen their prices rise steeply in recent months.
A bag of unshelled pistachios weighing 1kg, which cost around 20,000 won (S$17.50) early in December 2025, had climbed to roughly 80,000 won as at Jan 15. The price of 500g of kadaif likewise nearly doubled over the same period, rising to around 30,000 won.
This has prompted retailers and small business owners to raise their product prices as well.
The price of a single piece of dujjonku typically ranges from 4,000 won to 10,000 won, but has recently moved beyond that range. On one food delivery app, the dessert is currently listed at 12,000 won per piece.
“Importers keep raising kataifi prices. I’m selling each piece for 6,500 won right now, but I’ll probably have to charge more,” one user wrote on Apnikka Sajangida, one of Korea’s largest online communities for self-employed business owners.
Some dujjonku enthusiasts have turned to home baking using alternative ingredients amid the soaring prices.
A YouTube video demonstrating how to make dujjonku using soya bean noodles instead of kadaif has racked up more than four million views. The video says the noodles, when broken into small pieces and cooked in butter, deliver a similar texture and nutty flavour, while costing under 3,000 won for a 500g package.
Others have replaced the original ingredients with widely available snacks.
On TikTok, many users have been sharing posts featuring Orion’s Choco Pie, a snack made of chocolate cake and marshmallow that many say delivers a flavour and texture similar to dujjonku.
In the videos, the snack is sliced open, spread with pistachio cream, and frozen before being eaten. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
