Korea’s CU Convenience Stores Expands Global Market By Exporting Own Brand Products to Japan, Hong Kong

CU, one of the leading convenience store brands in South Korea, is aiming for global market expansion, and to reach its goal, it will start exporting its own brand’s products in stores overseas. The company will directly export its popular items in Japan’s Don Quijote and Hong Kong’s ParknShop store chains.

CU said that it will be the first Korean store to export its own CU-branded products directly to convenience outlets in Japan and Hong Kong. The company said it will also opt to sell snack and noodle items at lower prices to achieve growth in both local and overseas settings. The company will take advantage of the growing popularity of Korean food to expand its business outside of the country.

Launch of New Product

Korea Economic Daily reported that CU and other convenience store chains in the country are scaling up exports of K-food products under their own private labels as the competition in the local market picks up. The companies are also bringing their brands to other countries to increase sales and boost their total profits at home.

CU will introduce the cheese-flavored instant noodles sold under its Hyeroo label. Starting in April, they will be distributed to Japan through Don Quijote.

Don Quijote is the largest discount general store in the region, not only among Japanese locals but foreign tourists as well. BGF Retail, the operator of the CU chain, said it will sell 30,000 units of the new noodles and then increase the quantity later based on the sales results.

Why CU Chose Don Quijote

CU’s products will also be available in Hong Kong’s ParknShop starting next month. The company may later expand its private label products to other regions, such as Malaysia and Mongolia, since its goal is to earn $10 million in exports in 2024.

“Japanese tourists are so interested in Korean ramen that they include visiting the ‘ramen specialty convenience store’ in Hongdae as a must-visit when traveling,” Korea’s Greed Economy News quoted a BGF Retail official as saying regarding CU’s product export to Japan. “It is now available at Don Quijote and the reason we were able to do it was because of the influence of the K-food craze.”

The company official added, “During the past year of store opening negotiations, interest in Korean convenience store products was so great that Don Quijote visited Korea in person and conducted on-site market research.”

Photo by: Choi Kwang Mo/Wikimedia Commons(CC0 1.0)