Packs of kimchi are on display at a retail chain in Seoul, Sept. 29. Yonhap

The sales of mass-produced kimchi are soaring, propelled by an increasing number of households that find the otherwise home-made Korean dish too expensive due to a spike in ingredient prices, market watchers said.

Napa cabbage and radish prices have surged up to 50 percent from a year ago, influenced by longer-than-expected summer heatwaves this year.

According to GS Shop, a TV home shopping affiliate of GS Group, 5,000 packs of kimchi made by Jongga, Daesang Group's kimchi maker, were sold out in under five minutes after the product was featured in a commercial on Saturday.

Of the three varieties, two were packs of 10.4 kilograms, and one was of 5.2 kilograms.

The 5,000 packs combined with 4,000 pre-orders received by the firm's mobile app raises the total to 9,000 packs.

GS shop said the sales of Jongga kimchi during the less than five-minute period averaged 53 million won ($40,000) per minute, the highest figure for any product it sold this year.

Saturday's success followed a similar event on Sept. 22 when the kimchi manufacturer with a third of the country's market share sold all 6,500 packs of kimchi within 41 minutes after its commercial went on air.

Similarly, CJ CheilJedang, the producer of Bibigo kimchi, said that 41 of its 49 varieties were sold out, with the remaining eight being non-cabbage kimchi.

Some retail outlets restrict the number of kimchi packs each customer can purchase.

According to the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corp. (aT), the retail price of one head of napa cabbage first topped 9,000 won last month. The figure was 9,200 on Oct. 2, up 33.9 percent from a month earlier and 32.7 percent from a year ago.

Radish retailed at 3,859 won, up 50.3 percent from a year ago and 29.7 percent from the annual average.

A Korea Rural Economic Institute report showed that napa production this fall will decrease between 5.2 percent and 8.1 percent compared to last year.