GS Retail Achieves 1.4 Billion KRW Export in Q1 Through Product Diversification

Display stand exclusively for GS Retail's export products exhibited at ParknShop, a supermarket in Hong Kong. (Photo by GS Retail)

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Convenience store products are leading to annual exports worth 3 billion KRW overseas, diversifying the export items.

GS Retail announced on the 22nd that its export performance recorded 200 million KRW in 2017, 1.1 billion KRW in 2018, and 3 billion KRW in 2019, showing a 15-fold increase compared to the first year of export.

In the first quarter of this year, despite the impact of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), exports worth 1.4 billion KRW have already been shipped, nearly half of last year's performance.

GS Retail plans to achieve export performance of 5 billion KRW by the end of this year and exceed 20 billion KRW within two years.

The number of export items has also greatly expanded from about 40 types in 2017 to about 320 types last year. GS Retail's export products mainly consist of GS25 PB (private brand) foods such as Yours Cherry Blossom Sparkling and Yours Butter Garlic Popcorn, riding the wave of the K-food craze centered in Asia.

Since last year, in addition to PB foods, non-food items have also contributed to export performance, diversifying export products. The composition ratio of non-food export items increased from 7.9% in 2019 to 16.8% in the first quarter of 2020.

In particular, as the excellence of facility equipment used in GS25 franchise stores became known, exports of facility equipment such as automatic fryers have been made to Taiwan, the Philippines, and other regions since 2019.

In the first quarter of this year, despite the global impact of COVID-19, about 1.5 billion KRW worth of 150 types of PB products including frozen convenience foods, instant foods, cup noodles, and toilet paper, along with about 600 million KRW worth of 60 types of non-food products including GS25’s equipment, were exported to 22 countries including European countries such as the Netherlands and Russia.

Kim Jongsu, head of GS Retail’s MD division, said, “Due to the diversification of export items since last year, despite difficult times, inquiries for exports of shelf-stable foods and equipment products that are gaining attention overseas continue. It is very rewarding that GS Retail’s exports, which started with PB products, have led to the overseas market development of domestic small and medium-sized enterprises’ products.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.