CJ CheilJedang overseas food sales surpasses domestic market

South Korea's CJ CheilJedang Corp. announced on Tuesday that its overseas food sales surpassed the domestic market in the fourth quarter performance last year.

The company’s overseas sales of the food division in the fourth quarter of 2023 reached 1.387 trillion won ($1.03 billion), slightly edging out domestic sales, which stood at 1.380 trillion won.

The growth of the overseas food part was fueled by its food brand Bibigo’s strategic products such as dumplings, Korean-style fried chicken, K-sauces, kimchi, and seaweed, particularly in North America, Europe, and Australia.

In North America, the bibigo mandu (Korean-style dumpling) and Red Baron, a pizza brand acquired by CJ CheilJedang in 2019 from Schwan's, reinforced their market leadership.

The sales of frozen chicken and processed rice saw increases of 19% and 15% year over year. In Europe, the company broadened its sales network, including France and Sweden, alongside the UK and Germany.

In Australia, Bibigo products experienced robust sales through the major supermarket chain Woolworths.

Last year, CJ CheilJedang reported a consolidated revenue of 29.23 trillion won and an operating profit of 1.29 trillion won.

When compared to the previous year, there was a 3.5% decrease in revenue and a 22.4% decline in operating profit.

When excluding the performance of CJ Logistics, the company's revenue for 2023 was 17.89 trillion won with an operating profit of 819.5 billion won, marking a year-on-year decrease of 4.7% and 35.4%.

CJ CheilJedang holds a 40% stake in CJ Logistics.

The bio business division reported a revenue of 3.48 trillion won and an operating profit of 689 billion won in 2023.

Write to Hun-Hyoung Ha at hhh@hankyung.com