Lotte Home Shopping, Asahi to cooperate on health functional food biz

South Korea's Lotte Home Shopping signed an exclusive agreement with Japan's Asahi Group Foods to supply and sell health functional food ingredients in the domestic market, according to the company on Thursday.

Under the deal, Lotte will exclusively import six types of health ingredients developed by Asahi until 2028, using them for new product development and sales.

The partnership combines Asahi’s technical expertise with Lotte’s established distribution network.

Through this collaboration, Lotte Home Shopping aims for annual sales of 30 billion won ($22.39 million) by 2028 in the health functional food sector.

Asahi Group Foods, a leading player in Japan’s health food market since its establishment in 2015, reported revenues of around 1.3 trillion won last year.

Lotte Home Shopping has been ramping up its presence in the health functional food sector, viewing it as a key growth area.

In June, the company launched The Edition Health, a joint venture with H.Pio, a health food specialist and a subsidiary of the Danish Food Cluster, Denps, to produce premium protein products.

South Korea’s health functional food market expanded by 27% since 2019, reaching 6.2 trillion won last year.

During this period, Lotte Home Shopping saw a 70% surge in health food orders from customers aged 55 and older, underscoring the market's growth potential as the elderly population rises.

Write to Ji-Yoon Yang at yang@hankyung.com