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CJ Cheiljedang's ready-made Korean food products now available in UK
A visitor to CJ Cheiljedang's Bibigo pop-up store in Shoreditch, London, the U.K., checks a dumpling product, Saturday (local time). Courtesy of CJ Cheiljedang
By Ko Dong-hwan
CJ Cheiljedang's readymade Korean food products are now available for U.K. consumers to buy through the country's major local food delivery platforms, according to the food product maker, Monday.
Bibigo To Go, the company's readymade food product brand is now available via delivery companies such as Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat in the U.K. The company has signed a partnership with Peckwater Brands, a local delivery franchise operator in the U.K., to jointly manage the brand locally.
The brand's menu includes different kinds of dumplings, chicken, "tteokbokki" (rice cake covered with a spicy pepper paste) and "japchae" (glass noodles with mushrooms and vegetables). The company said the brand will introduce a new menu item every six months.
Before launching the brand, the company tested its menu items in the U.K. for six weeks and, based on feedback from local consumers, adjusted the recipes and prices of the products.
"Europe used to be a barren ground for K-food products and successful promotion was really hard," an official from the company said. "But that is no longer true as global interest in Korean culture has increased immensely now. With our European hub in the U.K., we will monitor local responses to our brand and strategically expand our European market."
Earlier this month, CJ Cheiljedang, a subsidiary of CJ Group, launched a Bibigo pop-up store in Shoreditch, London, to promote the brand that wields major popularity in Korea. The store will introduce a limited number of items yet to be launched by Bibigo To Go or released to other channels including frozen gimbap and kimchi spring rolls.
CJ Cheiljedang founded its branch office in the U.K. in May last year as a strategic location for the company's European expansion to increase Europe-bound sales to 500 billion won ($385 million) by 2027.
The company now operates CJ MainFrost in Germany and CJ Kizuna plant in Vietnam to facilitate its global expansion.