Choco Pies, a brand of popular snack cakes from South Korea, are reportedly now banned in North Korea. Prior to this, workers in the Kaesong Industrial Complex could receive as many as 20 of these Choco Pies each day.  By some estimates, as many as 2.5 million Choco Pies were traded monthly.

The value and persuasive power of the Choco Pie in North Korea became increase, as factory workers (many of whom are women) soon realized, “the Choco Pies were too delicious and valuable to eat,” according to Richard Lloyd Parry, who appears to have crafted  the definitive account of the Choco Pie affairs. Many Kaesong Industrial Complex workers would therefore sell these Choco Pies on the black market for a profit that ranged anywhere between 50 cents on the meager end, all the way up to 10 US dollars on the inflated end. 

The North Korean regime has long perceived Choco Pies are as an ideological threat from South Korea. Additionally, as the dishing out of pies at Kaesong Industrial Complex dropped significantly, the spread of “anti-Choco-Pie” propaganda increased, including that the pies were planted by the South to “shake [North Korea’s] national defense” and could destroy the sacred ideology of its people. 

Rather than Choco Pies, workers in Kaesong Industrial Complex are now being offered instant noodles, powdered coffee, sausages. However,  the power of the pie has not vanished entirely, as some North Koreans have resorted to hunting down and selling knock-off Choco Pies produced in China.

Source: The Washington Post