CJ's Bibigo bolsters sports marketing with PGA tours sponsorship

Scottie Scheffler, a top-ranked American professional golfer, gave a shoutout to food served by CJ CheilJedang Corp. during The CJ Cup golf tournament in South Carolina in 2022, saying the Korean food he tasted at the Bibigo Kitchen booth during the tour was the best.

During the 2022 CJ Cup PGA tour sponsored by CJ Cheiljedang’s parent CJ Group, about 7,000 servings of Korean favorites such as dumplings and seasoned and fried chicken under its flagship Bibigo brand sold.

It has sponsored PGA tournaments under The CJ Cup title since 2017. The sports marketing has paid off, promoting Bibigo and other Korean food not only in the US but also around the world.

From 2024, the PGA tour was rebranded into the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, of which CJ Group’s Bibigo is the title sponsor.

The Korean food maker will make the most use of the 2024 CJ Cup Byron Nelson scheduled for next month at TPC Craig Ranch, Texas to explore new overseas markets beyond the US, Japan and Europe. The prize money totals $9.5 million, of which $1.71 million will go to the final winner.

PGA tours, organized by the Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA), air across 200 countries.

GLOBAL SALES

Last year, Bibigo led CJ Cheiljedang’s global sales of processed food to 5.4 trillion won ($3.9 billion). Particularly, sales in the US sharply rose to 4.4 trillion won, compared to 3.6 trillion won in 2018.

To leverage the K-pop and K-food fad, CJ will expand its food items to street food such as seaweed rolled rice gimbab; spicy simmer rice cake tteokbokki; fried seaweed rolls; seaweed snacks; fish-shaped bun bungeo-ppang; and hotteok, a pancake filled with sugar syrup.

It will also ratchet up its global sales campaigns for the Paris Olympics this summer to venture into Europe’s food market.

Last year, it established subsidiaries in Thailand and Australia. Now its Bibigo dumplings are available at about 1,000 outlets of Woolworths Supermarket, the largest supermarket chain in Australia.

In January this year, it launched its Bibigo dumpling product that received halal certification in Malaysia. Halal food refers to food permissible under Islamic law.

Write to Sul-Li Jun at sljun@hankyung.com

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.