A customer picks up the Pulmuone Tuna Kimbap at a store in China (Courtesy of Pulmuone)
Major South Korean food company Pulmuone Corp. is set to bolster the K-food craze in China, the world’s No. 2 populous country, with kimbap, seaweed-wrapped rice rolls.
Pulmuone said on Thursday it supplied frozen kimbap to stores in China of Sam’s Club, a membership-only warehouse club retail chain owned by US Walmart Inc. Sam’s Club operates 49 stores in major Chinese cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.
The South Korean company plans to ship 136,000 packages consisting of three tuna kimbap each to the mainland this month with an annual export target of 620,000 packs.
“We sought the exports based on expectations of kimbap demand in Asian countries such as China as the kimbap boom in the US continued with short-form content about the food on major platforms such as TikTok getting more popular,” said a Pulmuone official.
“Kimbap became a representative K-food as it is perceived as a cost-effective, simple and healthy meal.”
Kimbap, or gimbap, are seaweed-wrapped Korean rice rolls, which are different from Japanese sushi rolls. The Korean rolls include rice (bap), marinated meat, but mostly beef, a bit of omelet-style egg, carrots, a vegetable such as spinach — and rolled into seaweed, called kim or gim in Korean.
The food hit the jackpot in the US, the world’s largest economy, with the frozen kimbap sold out at major retailers such as Trader Joe’s, an American grocery chain store operator.
A Pulmuone official introduces a new premium pasta at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai in November 2022 (File photo by Pulmuone)
EXPANSION IN CHINA
Pulmuone has been providing other K-foods such as tofu and noodles to Sam’s Club in China.
The company geared up to supply its kimbap to other large chain stores in the country and expand the K-food boom there with South Korea’s export support programs.
The plant-based food producer accelerated its expansion in China by establishing subsidiaries in Beijing and Shanghai in 2010.
“We will increase sales channels based on the frozen kimbap’s competitiveness to be proven at Sam’s Club while launching more new Korean-style rice products to consolidate the K-food’s position in China,” said Yoon Sung-won, head of Pulmuone’s Chinese marketing division.
By Hyung-Joo Oh
ohj@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.
