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Korean food takes aim at Hispanic market

June 30, 2015

A large scale sample event of ramen, laver, coffee, rice crackers, bulgogi and other Korean food took place at Superior Grocers’ Lynnwood store on June 25. (Korea Times)

By Park Ji-hye, Angelina Widener

From popular items such as dried seaweed, aloe juice and ramen, to BBQ sauce, rice crackers and instant coffee, the awareness and position of Korean food in the U.S. is gradually expanding among Hispanics.

The Lynnwood branch of Superior Grocers, one of Southern California’s biggest Hispanic markets, started a publicity event last week centered on Korean food that will last three weeks, from June 24 to July 9.

Hispanic customers are familiar with Korean food.

“I’ve enjoyed eating seaweed, but I also find other snacks, especially wasabi snacks, really delicious,” one Hispanic customer said. “I absolutely want to try cooking with bulgogi sauce.”

This event was jointly organized by the Korean Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and Korea Agro-Trade Center Los Angeles (LA aT) in order to expand the presence of Korean products in markets. To do so, they partnered with Superior Grocers and launched an operative sales promotion of Korean food.

During the event, each of the Grocers’ 12 locations will promote Korean food items from CJ, Haitai, Jayone, Wang and many more.

On June 25, the market hosted a large-scale sample event of ramen, seaweed, coffee, rice crackers, bulgogi and other Korean food.

Jayone has recently collected information about Hispanic consumers’ favorite items such as rice crackers, japchae sauce and instant coffee. Along with CJ, which advertises simple BBQ sauce recipes — for example, taco, steak or bulgogi — they are trying to encourage consumers to repurchase these items.

In order to expand Korean food items in Hispanic markets, LA aT signed a MOU with Superior Grocers in Dec. 2012 and has been promoting Korean food since.

Starting with the Lynnwood store, Korean food is now available in 24 other stores. As a result of its popularity, the number of items available for purchase expanded from 10 to 200.

“Korean food started with many expectations and in only three years it has surpassed satisfactory results,” Mimi Song, Superior Grocers president, said. “We expect to introduce more items like sesame oil, sesame, Korean beer, soju and other items that people didn’t know about.”

“Up until now, we couldn’t say that sales were high, but in stores where we promoted to raise awareness about Korean products, the difference was significant,” LA aT Branch Manager Lee Won-ki said. “In three years the introduction of Korean food was a success. This year, new stores and additional Asian sections will be installed in 17 locations and this will be an opportunity to focus on promotion and expansion of products.”