Pulmuone to boost K-food boom in China with gimbap

Leading South Korean food company Pulmuone Corp. is poised to crank up the K-food craze in China, the world’s second most populous country, with gimbap — rice rolls wrapped in seaweed.

Pulmuone said on Thursday it began supplying frozen gimbap to Sam's Club stores in China. A membership-only warehouse club retail chain owned by US-based Walmart Inc., Sam's Club operates 49 stores in major Chinese cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

The Korean food maker plans to ship 136,000 packages containing three tuna gimbap each to China starting this month. Its annual gimbap export target is 620,000 packs.

“We sought the exports based on expectations of gimbap demand in Asian countries such as China, given that the gimbap boom in the US has continued, with short-form content about the food item getting more popular on major platforms such as TikTok,” said a Pulmuone official.

“Gimbap has become a symbolic K-food as it is perceived as a simple, cost-effective and healthy meal.”

Gimbap, or kimbap, are seaweed-wrapped rice rolls that differ from Japanese sushi rolls. The Korean-style rolls include rice (bap), marinated meat, a bit of omelet-style egg, carrots, and vegetables such as spinach rolled inside dry seaweed, called kim (gim) in Korean.

The food item has hit the big leagues in the US: Frozen gimbap has at times been sold out at major retailers such as Trader Joe’s, an American grocery store chain operator.

EXPANSION IN CHINA

In addition to gimbap, Pulmuone has been providing other K-foods such as tofu and noodles to Sam’s Club in China.

The company is gearing up to supply its gimbap to other large chain stores in China and expand the K-food boom there with the support of Korea’s export support programs.

The plant-based food producer accelerated its expansion in China by establishing subsidiaries in Beijing and Shanghai in 2010.

“We will increase our sales channels based on the competitiveness of the frozen gimbap at Sam’s Club, while launching more new Korean-style rice products to consolidate K-food’s position in China,” said Yoon Sung-won, head of Pulmuone’s Chinese marketing division.

Write to Hyung-Joo Oh at ohj@hankyung.com
 
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.