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Choco Pie sold for $10 in NK black market

January 29, 2014

chocopieChoco Pie, the enormously popular marshmallow sandwich snack, is selling for $10 each in North Korean black markets in Pyongyang and Gaesong Industrial complex, CNN reported.

In an interview Jan. 28, Steven Noerper, executive vice chairman of Korea Society based in New York City, said the black markets have been getting more and more active with Choco Pie being one of the most popular items.

In a separate report, the Guardian as at best, theirs is a fractious relationship.

But it seems that the two Koreas have been united by one thing – a love of chocolate.

For the marshmallow chocolate pie has become so popular in North Korea that people are buying it for up to a day’s pay on the black market. In South Korea, where the treats are manufactured, they cost less than 50 cents.

The average North Korean reportedly makes the equivalent of between $100 (£60) to $200 (£120) a month. chocolate-covered cakes, filled with marshmallow cream.

It is believed the North was first introduced to the confectionery via the Gaesong Industrial Complex where 100 South Korean factory owners employ about 50,000 North Korean labourers.

The North Korean workers were given soup and snacks to sustain them throughout the day and received the Choco Pies in their lunchboxes.

The South Korean companies were also banned from paying their North Korean employees cash bonuses and instead rewarded them with food products, including the chocolate biscuits.

It soon became obvious to factory owners that the workers were not all eating the treats at work, and many had taken them home to their families.

A South Korean factory owner, who gave his North Korean workers Choco Pies, along with Coca Cola, said his workers were “ecstatic at the taste.”

He told CNN: “It was clear that the workers had gotten at least some idea of capitalism and that it wasn’t all bad.”

It is believed the North was first introduced to the confectionery via the Gaesong Industrial Complex where 100 South Korean factory owners employ about 50,000 North Korean laborers.

In North Korea, the black market for capitalist products is highly illegal, but thriving.

North Korea suffered a crippling famine in the 1990s that killed an estimated one million people, and it has struggled with food production since.

Previously, food such as pizzas, hamburgers and French fries were banned from the North.

Choco Pies have even been sent to North Korea in balloons by advocacy groups.