‘Kim Hye-ja’s lunch box’ is more than 1 million in 3 weeks
A hand to find cheap convenience store lunch box at high prices ↑
GS25 ‘Hyejaroun Squid Homemade Bulgogi Rice’
As the price of eating out continues to skyrocket day after day, putting pressure on consumers’ pockets, the convenience store industry is rolling out affordable lunch box products of about 5,000 won to capture consumers.
According to the industry on the 7th, ‘Kim Hye-ja’s lunch box’ GS25, which was re-released after six years last month and announced the ‘return of the king’, sold 890,000 units within 19 days of its release This means that more than 45,000 units have been sold on average every day, and given the current sales pace, it is expected to achieve cumulative sales of more than 1 million within this week. Hyeja Kim’s lunch box, which was released in two varieties, ‘Hyejaroun Homemade Squid Bulgogi’ and ‘Hyejaroun Homemade Rice Stir-fried Pork’, is first and second in the GS25 lunch box sales in March.
Kim Hye-ja’s lunch box, first released in 2010, has sold around 260 million units by 2017, creating a new word, ‘Hye-ja-like’, which means generous makeup at an affordable price. The reason why Kim Hye-ja’s lunch box, which led the convenience store lunch box crash, has reappeared in the market is because the demand for cost-effective lunch boxes has increased due to the recent high price. An official from GS25 said, “Since Kim Hye-ja’s lunch box represents the keywords of high quality, cost-effectiveness, and sharing, we carefully considered taste, nutrition, and cost-effectiveness.” The regular price of Hyeja Kim’s lunch box, which is 5,500 won, goes down to 3,250 won when various discounts are applied.
CU ‘Triple Series won by Baek Jong’
When GS25 took out Kim Hye-ja’s card, CU also took out Baek Jong-won, the godfather of the food service world, and took out The Born Korea’s representative card to fight back. About 400,000 copies of the ‘Baek Jong-won Triple Lunch Box’, which CU collaborated with CEO Baek and released on the 16th of last month, have been sold and are receiving a response similar to Kim Hye-ja’s lunch box. During the same period, approximately 650,000 units of Baek Jong’s triple-winning Series were sold, including lunch boxes, triangular gimbap, gimbap, and hamburgers. Baek Jong-won’s triple series, named ‘Triple’ due to the fact that three main ingredients have been used in generous amounts, includes all products, including the representative product Triple Meat Box, Triple Mushroom Burger, and Pasta Triple Cheese, for about 5,000 won, reduced the burden.
E-Mart 24 also introduced ’39 Lunch Boxes’ and ’42 Lunch Boxes’ last month with low prices of 3,900 won and 4,200 won, competing for first and second place in the box category food and make the box office popular. Emart 24 lunchbox sales increased by 29% compared to the previous month for four days from the 27th of last month to the 2nd of this month, with 39 lunchboxes receiving favorable reviews. An official from E-Mart 24 analyzed, “The very low price strategy of lowering the unit price by selecting 1 or 2 types of side dishes that are included in popular lunch boxes in each manufacturing plant and mass producing them, and then composing 39 boxed lunch with the side dishes, worked well.”
Recently, the average price of bibimbap and naengmyeon exceeded 10,000 won, increasing the burden on households. According to the Korea Consumer Agency’s price information portal, the average price of eight representative food items in Seoul in January this year increased by 10.8% compared to the same period last year. Specifically, bibimbap is 10,000 won, up 8.8%, and naengmyeon is 10,692 won, up 9.0%, exceeding the 10,000 won mark. Jajangmyeon has earned 6,569, up 13.9% from 5,769 earned in the same month last year, and is about to enter the 7,000 earned range.
Reporter Goo Eun-mo gooeunmo@asiae.co.kr
