A shopper was stunned to find food which appeared to be an export of North Korea in a grocery store.
A Reddit user with the username u/sanhydronoid9, who prefers to remain otherwise anonymous, took to social media to share the discovery which surprised and confused many people on the social media site. The post received over 11,000 upvotes and hundreds of comments.
The picture was taken by the Reddit user in LuLu Mall in Kochi, India, they told Newsweek.
Red grapes in a grocery store advertised as being from Korea, with a North Korean flag on the sign.
sanhydronoid9/Reddit
The viral photo shows a sign for red grapes from “Korea,” with the flag of North Korea to accompany, advertising the product for 469 Indian Rupees (around $5.59) per kilogram. However, some Redditors speculated that the flag choice may have been a mistake considering its significant isolation from the rest of the world’s nations.
Newsweek has contacted LuLu Group International for comment via email.
The Korean Peninsula is split into two countries, North Korea, which calls itself the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and South Korea, which names itself the Republic of Korea.
“I was just surprised and had to double check the flag of NK [North Korea] to make sure,” the Reddit user said.
The flag of North Korea, as shown in the photo, is made up of a large red horizontal strip with thinner blue strips above and below, with a white circle containing a red star in the middle strip. Meanwhile, the flag of South Korea is made up of a white rectangular background which has a red/blue yin-yang symbol in the middle, which is surrounded by four black trigrams.
Dr. Edward Howell, lecturer of politics at Christ Church, University of Oxford with a focus on the international relations of North Korea, told Newsweek that the sign might “simply be a mistake.”
“South Korea is a large exporter of grapes, not least to markets in Southeast Asian countries, but also—albeit to a lesser extent—to Japan,” he said. “North Korea has been known to export apples, mushrooms, and even blueberries, to Russia and China.
“In general, however, the hermit kingdom tends to import fruit, whether blueberries or dragon fruit, not least from its largest trading partner of China. We should not discount the prospect of North Korea exporting grapes to India. North Korea does produce wine, from grapes, which it has imported overseas, not least to China.”
While North Korea, which is under the totalitarian leadership of its “supreme leader,” Kim Jong Un, is considered one of the most isolated nations in the world, it does export a number of products to other countries. According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, North Korea’s top exports in 2022 were Tungsten Ore ($30.9 million), Refined Petroleum ($27.3 million), Ferroalloys ($25.3 million), and electricity ($20.4 million).
The organization also says that a major export for North Korea in that year was fruit juice, which amounted to $188,000.
Howell continued: “Pyongyang faces several intersecting issues, which compounds its ability to export fruit and vegetables: firstly, its poor agricultural output—as has been recently acknowledged by Kim Jong Un—is a clear result of a lack of infrastructure, but also, secondly, poor meteorological conditions, with the country facing flooding and drought.”
He added: “Even though grapes have little to do with the North Korean nuclear and missile program, and would thus be highly unlikely to be sanctioned, the broader landscape of North Korean trade has indeed been affected by sanctions.”
Redditors debated whether or not the product was actually from North Korea or if the flag used on the sign was simply a mistake. One user with the moniker Toronto_Rebecca commented: “It’s more than likely that they just used the wrong flag.”
Another, u/Plenty_Protection402, said: “It’s not fake nor a wrong flag, I saw North Korean apples the other day at the store (in France).” Someone else replied: “Yeah I remember seeing North Korean mushrooms in Germany once.”
While u/YogaLadyLustful argued: “It’s likely they just used the wrong flag.”
