Scottie Scheffler celebrates with the trophy after winning a PGA tournament on April 22, 2024
Scottie Scheffler, a top-ranked American professional golfer, gave a thumbs-up to Korean food served by CJ CheilJedang Corp. during The CJ Cup golf tournament in South Carolina in 2022, saying the Korean food he tasted at the Bibigo Kitchen booth during the tour was the best.
During the 2022 CJ Cup PGA tour sponsored by CJ Cheiljedang’s parent CJ Group, about 7,000 servings of food such as dumplings and seasoned and fried chicken under its flagship Bibigo brand sold.
It has sponsored PGA tournaments under The CJ Cup title since 2017. The sports marketing has paid off, promoting Bibigo and other Korean food not only in the US but also around the world.
From this year, the PGA tour was combined into the Byron Nelson and rebranded into the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, where CJ Group’s Bibigo is the title sponsor.
CJ Cheiljedang’s food under the Bibigo brand
The Korean food maker will make the most use of the 2024 CJ Cup Byron Nelso scheduled for next month in TPC Craig Ranch, Texas to explore new overseas markets beyond the US, Japan and Europe. The prize money totals $9.5 million, of which $1.71 million will go to the final winner.
PGA tours, organized by the professional golfers’ association of America (PGA), are aired across 200 countries.
GLOBAL SALES
Last year, Bibigo led CJ Cheiljedang’s global sales of processed food to 5.4 trillion won ($3.9 billion). Particularly, sales in the US sharply rose to 4.4 trillion won, compared to 3.6 trillion won in 2018.
To leverage the K-pop and K-food fad, CJ will expand its food items to street food such as seaweed rolled rice gimbab; spicy simmer rice cake tteokbokki; fried seaweed roll; seaweed snack; fish-shaped bun bungeo-ppang; and hotteok, a pan cake filled with sugar syrup.
Golfers Tyrrell Hatton (left) and Adam Scott tasted Bibigo food during the CJ Cup PGA tour in 2021 (Courtesy of CJ Cheiljedang)
It will also ratchet up global sales campaigns on the occasion of the Paris Olympics this summer to venture into Europe’s food market.
Last year, it established subsidiaries in Thailand and Australia. Now its Bibigo dumpling is available at about 1,000 outlets of Woolworths Supermarket, the largest supermarket chain in Australia.
In January this year, it launched its Bibigo dumpling product that received a halal certificate in Malaysia. Halal food refers to food permissible under Islamic law and can be consumed by Muslims.
By Sul-Li Jun
sljun@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.
