South Korea’s top performers: CJ Cheiljedang and Lotte emerge as 2023’s highest-performing food firms

21-Aug-2024 - Last updated on 21-Aug-2024 at 05:08 GMT

South Korea has named the 11 top-performing food and beverage firms in the country for 2023. ©Getty Images

Related tags South korea CJ CheilJedang Lotte performance

The South Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) has named the 11 top-performing food and beverage firms in the country for 2023, with the first and second rankings going to CJ Cheiljedang and Lotte respectively.

MFDS recently unveiled its top 11 list of the food and beverage companies with the best production performance in South Korea reaching KRW1tn (US$729.4mn) or more.

“There has been an increase of two local food companies that entered the list by reaching the KRW1tn mark this year, compared to nine the previous year,” MFDS Oh Yu-kyoung said via a formal statement.

“The two new additions were Lotte’s newly-minted food and confectionery arm Lotte Wellfood as well as packaged food and snacks firm Dongseo Foods.

“Leading the list and maintaining its top position from last year was CJ Cheiljedang with a production performance of KRW3.29tn (US$2.40bn), a 0.2% growth from KRW3.24tn (US$2.36bn) the year before.

“Lotte Chilsung Beverage Co. took second place with KRW2.33tn (US$1.70bn), moving up one spot from third place last year.

“This was followed by ramen brand Nongshim in third place (KRW2.30tn/US$1.68bn), ramen and condiments firm Ottogi Co (KRW1.58tn/US$1.15bn) in fourth place, beer and soju brand Hite Jinro (KRW1.52tn/US$1.11bn) in fifth place and Lotte Wellfood (KRW1.27tn/US$926mn) in sixth place.”

The remaining spots in the top 11 list were filled by dairy firm Seoul Milk Cooperative (KRW1.21tn/US$882.3mn) in the seventh place, ingredients and functional foods firm Samyang Corporation (KRW1.05tn/US$765.6mn) in eighth place, condiment and RTE foods firm Daesang Corporation (KRW1.03tn/US$751.0mn) in ninth, ramen firm Samyang Foods (KRW1.016tn/US$740.8mn) in tenth and Dongseo Foods (KRW1.015tn/US$740.1mn) in the eleventh spot.

“MFDS has released this analysis report as this production performance data is expected to be important as a basis for further analysis of the current status of the food industry,” Oh added.

“This is expected to be widely used in future analysis to further develop the food industry, from areas such as product analysis and research to the establishment of new government policies.”

MFDS also highlighted that the South Korean food industry had exceeded KRW100tn (US$72.9bn) overall for the second consecutive year, growing 3.5% to hit KRW108.5tn (US$79.1bn) from KRW104.8tn (US$76.4bn) the year before.

Kimchi boost

Whilst ramen has emerged as the most popular food export for South Korea due to both the influence of the Hallyu wave and strong government efforts, MFDS also made a special mention of kimchi having attained a strong overseas consumer base due to its ‘health food’ status.

“This has dated back to the pandemic when kimchi became popular as a healthy food that can boost immunity, and the demand has been steadily increasing ever since,” she added.

“In 2023, the highest export numbers ever were recorded for South Korean kimchi at US$198.8mn which was a 45.7% increase from the year before.

“This has been analysed to be due to the rapid increase in demand from the United States and European markets.”