Pepero global ambassador NewJeans
Lotte Group has chosen Pepero, a chocolate-covered thin stick cookie, as the first brand it will foster as one of the world’s 10 most valuable brands with annual sales of over 1 trillion won ($747 million).
Pepero is one of Lotte Wellfood Co.’s snacks recently gaining in popularity in overseas markets, and its global sales reached 200 billion won in 2023.
South Korea’s sixth-largest conglomerate controlling food, retail, chemical, construction, hotel and finance businesses will nurture the stick snack as Asia’s No. 1 brand and one of the global top 10 brands in the food and beverage (F&B) sector by 2035 under the direction of its Chairman Shin Dong-bin.
“Lotte’s Korean and Japanese operations must work closely together to build a sustainable brand in the global market,” Shin was quoted to say to executives accompanying him during his business trip to Europe last week. “I urge you all to work hard to foster multiple global brands with global sales of over 1 trillion won per each.”
Shin held the so-called One Lotte strategic meeting in Warsaw, Poland attended by Lotte affiliates’ executives such as Lotte Wellfood Chief Executive Lee Chang-yeop, Lotte Group heir apparent Shin Yoo-yeol who leads Lotte Corp.’s future growth office and Lotte Holdings Co.’s CEO Tamatsuka Genichi.
ONE LOTTE FOR GLOBAL BRANDS
Founded by Lotte’s late Honorary Chairman Shin Kyuk-ho, who was a Korean national, in Japan in 1948 as a bubble gum manufacturer, Lotte has grown into a multinational retail-to-chemical business empire calling both Japan and Korea home.
Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin (center) visits confectionery factories in Belgium and Poland (Courtesy of Lotte)
Through close collaboration, Lotte’s Japanese affiliate plans to aid its Korean confectionery sibling Lotte Wellfood, also Korea’s No. 1 producer of packaged snacks and ice cream, in its global push to discover new growth markets.
Lotte will also seek to expand Pepero sales in the world’s most populous India and Southeast Asian countries, where the snack is already popular.
To meet its growing demand, Lotte Wellfood announced earlier this year a plan to build a Pepero production line in India, which will serve as one of the company’s Pepero export hubs once it is up and running in the second half of next year.
This is part of Lotte Wellfood’s goal to jack up its overseas sales to 30 to 50% of its entire sales by 2027 to enhance its global brand awareness.
As part of its global push, Lotte Wellfood acquired Belgian chocolate brand Guylian, also one of the world’s top three chocolate brands, in 2008, while its Japanese sibling took over Wedel, the oldest chocolate brand in Poland, from Kraft Foods in 2010.
During his business trip to Europe last week, Chairman Shin visited confectionery factories in Belgium and Poland. He also attended the opening ceremony of Wedel’s chocolate museum in Warsaw, Poland.
Lotte chief has been emphasizing innovation to reinvigorate the group’s businesses through two tracks of sales expansion and the discovery of new growth engines.
After years of active mergers and acquisitions to achieve economies of scale, Lotte focuses more on new growth engines such as bio, the metaverse, hydrogen energy and electric vehicle battery materials while selling ailing units in its traditional mainstay businesses like chemical.
By Hyun-jin Ra
raraland@hankyung.com
Sookyung Seo edited this article.
