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Try ‘New Year’s Day Korean Soup’

January 9, 2014

Korea’s traditional rice cake soup “tteokguk”’

‘Tteokguk’ promoted overseas

By Park Si-soo

CJ Foodville is promoting the country’s traditional rice cake soup, or “tteokguk,” eaten on New Year’s Day, at its overseas restaurant outlets. This is the latest in a series of steps the company has taken to promote Korean cuisine globally.

The traditional dish was served on Jan. 1 at Foodville’s 13 Bibigo-branded restaurants in the United States, China, Japan, Singapore and Indonesia and will be offered again during the Lunar New Year holidays from Jan. 30 to Feb. 2.

“This campaign was designed to promote Korea’s traditional way of celebrating the New Year to foreign customers,” a CJ official said. “We have educated staffers to tell customers about why Korean people eat a bowl of tteokguk on New Year’s Day.”

Consuming the soup is believed to bring good fortune for the forthcoming year and offers an additional year of life. Elongated rice cakes are thinly sliced and served with beef broth, or anchovy or oyster soup ㅡ the recipe varies by region.

“We will continue to promote other traditional Korean foods through our overseas outlets,” the official said. “We are working to select the next item to promote.”

In August, Foodville’s holding company, CJ Group, announced that the group’s food-making arms will report a combined sales of around 21 trillion won ($19.7 billion) by 2020 with half of it expected to be generated from overseas markets. The group earned 9 trillion won from the food business in 2012, the latest data available.