South Korea-Two more supermarket chains stocking US Beef from yesterday.

Shinsegae Co. (KSE:004170) and Hyundai Department Store Co. (KSE:05440) -- will resume the sale of U.S. beef starting Saturday after five years of keeping it off their shelves, industry sources said.

They stopped selling U.S. beef in December 2003 when a case of mad cow disease was confirmed in Washington State, leading to an import ban. The ban was lifted last June but a lingering stigma has made retailers wary of stocking the meat.

However, Lotte Department Store, South Korea’s largest department store chain, has yet to decide whether it will resume sales, the sources said.

The nation’s top three discount stores -- E-mart, Homeplus and Lottemart -- resumed sales of U.S beef at the end of November last year to meet growing demand for the cheaper meat amid a deepening economic recession.

South Korea first banned imports of U.S. beef in December 2003. The country resumed imports of the meat in October 2006 but then suspended quarantine inspections after banned backbones were detected in a shipment in October 2007.

Seoul and Washington signed a new import deal in April of last year. Huge street protests against the move prompted the administrations to hold additional talks, in which they agreed to limit imports to meat from cattle under 30 months old -- seen as less vulnerable to mad cow disease.

(Yonhap)