CJ Now

CJ CheilJedang Creates a New Market, Featuring K-street Food

▶ Korean wave fans who visited the Bibigo booth by CJ CheilJedang at KCON JAPAN 2023 held for three days starting May 12 in Japan.

CJ CheilJedang revs up its drive to disseminate Korean food culture by putting K-street food at the forefront.

CJ CheilJedang announced today that it had selected six food items—tteokbokki, hot dog, gimbap, gim mari, bungeo ppang, and hotteok—as strategic items of K-street food and will release new products in major countries in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The company intends to nurture next-generation K-food and set it as a fresh impetus for expanding into uncharted territory in the world.

CJ CheilJedang to release tteokbokki as the front runner of K-street food and use it strategically as a Country to Country (C2C) model.

The first runner of CJ CheilJedang’s K-street food will be tteokbokki, the leading example of K-street food. Starting in June, CJ CheilJedang will export tteokbokki to the company’s target areas, such as the USA, the UK, France, Japan, and Vietnam. They will be released as products stored at ambient temperature in a form of a cup and a pouch in consideration of local consumers’ preferences and convenience.

Other new products, including hot dogs, gim mari, and frozen tteokbokki, will also be released as Bibigo products beginning in August.

▶ An emblem for CJ CheilJedang’s K-street food products.

An emblem for CJ CheilJedang’s K-street food will be applied to these products. CJ CheilJedang created a cute character to remind viewers of Korean street food, such as tteokbokki and hot dogs, using the letter K of the word “Korean” to communicate the concept of K-street food, a new product category of CJ CheilJedang brand Bibigo, to global consumers in a more friendly, approachable way. CJ CheilJedang plans to use the emblem in various marketing campaigns, including product packaging design for six K-street food products.

For the worldwide dissemination of K-street food, CJ CheilJedang will export products manufactured in Korea, produce products locally, and adopt the Country to Country (C2C) model, that is, producing products in global production locations and exporting to neighboring countries. Through this, it will respond to changes in local market trends, while introducing products customized to local consumers.

CJ CheilJedang to open a Bibigo pop-up store in Shibuya, Tokyo on May 19. Frozen gimbap, released earlier in March, has been well received by local consumers.

Early in the year, CJ CheilJedang confirmed K-street food’s potential for success in Japan. Inspired by dokan gotko, meaning literally “traveling to Korea,” which is a trending activity among Japanese Millennials and Gen Z where they eat Korean food and watch Korean TV shows or movies, CJ CheilJedang launched frozen gimbap, which is gaining popularity in Japan as a tasty, healthy, and convenient food option. Since its release, over 200,000 frozen gimbap packages have been sold for a month, earning favorable reactions among local customers.

Starting on May 19, CJ CheilJedang plans to open a K-street food pop-up store in Shibuya, the largest downtown in Tokyo, and reach out to local consumers. The pop-up store will be designed as a trendy reinterpretation of a Korean street food stall using Bibigo’s symbolic green color and images of K-street food. The store will offer Bibigo tteokbokki, frozen gimbap, hot dogs, and Micho, and there will also be other attractions such as photo booths and event zones. Tokyo pop-up store will open until June 17.

K-street food is expected to boost the sales of global strategic products (GSPs), while CJ seeks to achieve synergy with K-content.

The launch of K-street food is expected to accelerate the growth momentum of seven GSPs of CJ CheilJedang (mandu, processed rice, chicken, K-sauce, kimchi, seaweed, and rolls). CJ CheilJedang plans to encourage customers to buy a combination of food products by suggesting recipes for GSPs that go well with K-street food. In fact, mixing various K-food items and enjoying them together is trending among young consumers overseas, for example, having a combination of mandu and tteokbokki, which is increasing in popularity.

The company is also seeking to achieve synergy with K-content. They intend to promote K-street food through KCON, an annual global K-culture festival held in various parts of the world including the USA and Japan, to young local consumers keen on Korean culture. In fact, over 10,000 people visited the Bibigo booth to have gimbap, mandu, and chicken at KCON JAPAN, held for three days between May 12 and May 14, which ended up exhausting all food supplies prepared. CJ CheilJedang also had a Bibigo booth at KCON THAILAND, which was held in March for the first time in four years, and spread the appeal of Korean food to more than 3,000 locals who visited the booth.

A CJ CheilJedang representative said, “We will do our best to create a new market with K-street food and expand the boundaries of K-food with our global localization strategy. We will go beyond Asia and disseminate the diverse range of Korean food culture to other parts of the world including the USA and Europe.”