70 new food items each week? South Korea is the convenience store capital of the world

Seoul – In many parts of the world, markets are the latest resort shops: cigarettes, sodas and laundry detergent. However, in South Korea, you can find a single malt whiskey, French wines of $ 800, 24k golden rods, shampoo and hair conditioner reproduction stations, televisions or more than 200 kinds of ramps in a variety of ramps.

A customer can buy a package, wash and dry his clothes, or sign up for a new bank card.

The stores are known for their numerous “instant birth” foods, a process in which almost every meal that can be converted into a packaged meal: Spaghetti, Japanese Udon, fried rice you squeeze from a tube. They have transformed their markets into an industry of 25 billion dollars in South Korea, and these food products were shaken at a surprising speed: each week with a maximum of 70 new foodstuffs were shot on the shelves and providing a vivid feeding of South Korean flavors.

“In South Korea’s food retail market, if you are not fast to change, you will run out of lineage, or says Chae Da-in, who says that the obsession with the markets has been decades. “Everything is about being diverse and fast.”

Chae, known as the “Market Critic ında on national media and social media, is the author of three books in the Foods world, the market store, which led to TV views and newspaper interviews.

Every Friday travels a handful of brands near his house to keep up with new ones. In the last twenty years, at least 800 kinds of markets estimated that he has consumed Samgak Gimbap-rice wrapped in a grouped seaweed and holding staple.

South Korea, 21 -year -old Lee Hee Chul from Incheon, is cooling Ramyon on a DIY cone made of Ramyon Bowl cover in a Cu market in a popular tourist area in Myeongdong. (For Tina HSU / The Times)

Shoppers prepare their dinner in one of the self -service machines in a dining area in a Cu Ramyon market.

In recent years, the Chae obsession has followed the globalization. South Korean markets such as South Korean films, TV shows and music have become a cultural sensation.

Netflix’s Hit series “Squid Game” in the store, such as the store made certain places. On Tiktok and Youtube, mucbang – Videos of people eating – South Korean grocery store gathered millions of landscapes.

“Giant cheese sausage,” a commentator titled “He eats only a Korean grocery store”, who reviews a tiktok video series. The meal also contains a plastic pouch, “3xl” spicy tuna swimsuit samgak gymbap and carbonara flavored bulda (“Fire Chicken”) contains blue lemonade in the noodle glass.

South Korean markets are now expanding to nearby countries such as Mongolia or Malaysia. Cu, one of the leading operators of the country with more than 600 stores in Asia, will open its first US position in Hawaii this year.

“The percentage of the population of Asia in Hawaii is six times the US mainland, which makes it a place with high levels of familiarity and positive attitudes against Korean culture, Lar said Lim Hyung-Geun, the head of the CU’s parent company BGF Retail.

“Beyond that, we see the continuous popularity of Korean culture, such as Korean food explosion among American young people and young people in their 20s and 30s, which we believe will be a major increase in the future expansion of CU.”

Lim calls Cu’s overseas places as “Miniature South Koreas, and can experience people who become popular with people’s K-waller.

“But as it is here, K-Convenience stores are not just a place to experience South Korean culture,” he said. “They are also restaurants, cafes and a general comfort.”

In other words, everything that opens everywhere and every time it stores.

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The GS25 Market cooperates with FC Seoul, a South Korean football club in Hongdae neighborhood.

Like many things South Korea has made something new, markets are an import to the country. The first store was founded in American-1927 in Texas and changed his name to 7-Eleven in 1946, Ice Co. was. 7-The first of Elevens was opened in Seoul in the 1980s.

Today, South Korea is the capital of the world. Like New York’s Bodegas, they have become a part of the texture of contemporary urban life, which can be restaurants or coffee shops or bars with microwaves and open seating areas. Chae calls them “the oasis of the streets.”

“People are hanging out in the markets,” he said. “They have become a social place.”

Some of the things that make them such a power in the country are their numbers.

There are about 55,000 markets in South Korea, an Indiana -sized country – there is a market for every 940 people. In Seoul, where the numbers have reached four times in the last 15 years, sometimes it seems to have one in every corner.

Most of them are about the roughly one of the four workers in South Korea, a high number of self -employed than other developed countries. For those who are in the economy of the mother and pop economy, which includes elderly workers who are pushed to early retirement or others celebrated from the traditional labor market, markets offer the most accessible entrepreneurship form.

“Compared to hundreds of thousands of people, the main lottery of the markets will be the cost of opening another job, and you can open one with about 20 million less profitable capital. [$14,000]Oh Oh Sang-Bong, the Head of Social Policy Studies of the Korean Working Institute. “ Of course it’s not easy. There are a lot of stimulating fairy tales. But there are also success stories. “

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Images of Boy Band Tomorrow X, decorate the windows of the Nice to Music Library market in the Seoul Hongdae district.

This abundance has made the market business one of the fastest and fastest and competitive ones in the country.

Hit products produce a kind of buzz that you can only see for a limited number of sneakers or the latest iPhone, requiring pre -orders or when inventories inevitably dry.

But the bastards are sudden. When it was first released last year, CU’s “Dubai-style chocolate” commanded the global tiktok food trend outside a purchase-offensive lines and was sold in one day. Four months later, he had fallen into six of them.

“The life of the products is now incredibly short because social media breaths are coming very fast and going,” he said, because he is not authorized to speak in the media, who wants to be defined only with his surname.

“In the past, when the market is not so saturated, everyone comes naturally as they open more stores. But now there are many stores, and then you compete with everyone who follows the platforms, coffee shops, restaurants-restaurants, not only with other markets, but also everyone who follows the same tendency.”

Most of Kim’s job includes shifting on social media platforms, such as Tiktok, and searching for the next hot ticket element, such as a remote food trend with signs of land.

“Rahin. It’s like trying to find a needle over and over again,” he said. “If you miss something big and will a competitor release him first? Then do you chew by your boss?”

Kwon Sung-Jun is the winner of the Culinary Class Wars, a Hit reality cooking contest published by Netflix last year. There is a stop ritual by a market every night after work – even if it doesn’t have anything to buy.

“Very useful to stay with any trend in the kitchen world, ve he said, and proved that routine is very important in winning a $ 223,000 award for“ Kitchen Class Wars ”.

At a stage of the competition, the contestants were assigned to cook a meal using the materials arising from a real life copy of a market on the set. 30 -year -old KWon won with a chestnut with a chestnut, milk, coffee and a packet of biscuits.

“I found the idea in 30 seconds,” he said. “I had a mental list of what the markets are, but I also planned backup options for each of them such as chestnuts, creams and the like.”

He has avoided markets since he won the competition; Just two weeks after the publication of this episode, Cu released a mass -produced version of Tiramisu, and Kwon’s face is in the packaging.

“It is a little embarrassing to see these photos of myself,” he said.

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“Most of the tourists are looking for products about Korean movies or TV shows like Dalgona [a traditional Korean candy] Kim Hye-Ryeon, the owner of a GS25 in the Hongdae region of Seoul, because they see in the ‘Squid game’.

Kim Hye-Ryeon, a 52-year-old owner of a GS25 in the Hongdae region of Seoul, says that all this is not easy to run a market.

Since franchise owners are responsible for choosing their own inventories from the company catalog which is updated three times a week, running a successful market is related to stocking and cash fines rather than to keep up with the crazy cycle of food trends.

“When there is a popular product, the owners who are one step ahead buy all stocks, so I can’t get it for my store sometimes,” he said. “You should always know what is popular among young people.”

In recent years, as the cultural footprint of South Korea expanded, the task became more complex. The streets, which were once silent, are now popular for tourists staying in the guest houses and Airbnbs opened in the region. Global tastes should also be taken into account.

A customer starts out in a GS25 market.

“There has been a significant increase since my pande,” he said. “Previously, they were mostly Chinese or Japanese tourists, but now everywhere, especially Americans and Europeans.”

From the back of the counter, it draws attention to what this international consumer base purchases, for example, how Muslim customers carefully examine the labels to check whether the element is halal.

“Most of the tourists are looking for products about Korean movies or TV shows like Dalgona [a traditional Korean candy] Because they said, ‘They saw him in Squid Game. ” [Korean shaved ice]. “