North Korea bans ‘Choco Pies’ as factory pay, says use sausages instead

North Korean authorities have issued a decree to factory workers who were used to receiving beloved “Choco Pies” snack cakes as a form of payment and bonus: No more pies. You’ll get sausages instead.

The ban on the snack food, which look somewhat like Moon Pies with a chocolatey coating, comes as North Korea is cracking down on certain black market items. North Korean factory employees who work in the Kaesong industrial park across the demilitarized zone on South Korean land have been receiving the pies as a form of overtime pay, The Independent reported.

Workers would take the snack foods to Pyongyang to sell on the black market, earning several times the actual price. The black market transactions were largely ignored — until just recently, when tensions between the North and South forced the factory to close for several weeks and the price of Choco Pies skyrocketed. They now sell for what a factory worker earns in a day, Chosun Ilbo reported.

So government and factory officials said no more. Instead of giving Choco Pies as pay, workers should get sausages, noodles, coffee or chocolate, The Independent reported.