Lotte Mart Launches Three 'Sweet Hug' Coffee Beans with Different Caffeine Levels

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Lotte Mart has launched a campaign to attract home cafe enthusiasts.

Lotte Mart will release three new concept private brand (PB) coffee beans on the 14th: 'Sweet Hug Strong Coffee,' 'Hazelnut-flavored Coffee,' and '1/2 Caffeine Coffee.' 'Sweet Hug' is Lotte Mart's dessert PB, characterized by distinguishing coffee for morning, afternoon, and evening consumption.

'Sweet Hug Strong Coffee' is a high-caffeine coffee designed for mornings to wake you up on drowsy mornings. This product contains about 237 mg of caffeine in a 60 ml espresso shot. The strong coffee was developed inspired by 'Death Coffee,' a high-caffeine coffee popular on Amazon in the U.S.

The low-caffeine product released alongside the strong coffee, 'Sweet Hug 1/2 Caffeine Coffee,' contains about 100 mg of caffeine. This is half the caffeine level compared to the existing in-house product 'Only Price Dark Blend,' reducing caffeine burden for those sensitive to caffeine and suitable for drinking even at night.

In addition to coffee for morning and evening, 'Sweet Hug Hazelnut-flavored Coffee' is also prepared, which is good to drink anytime without time restrictions. The 'Hazelnut-flavored Coffee' is not strong in taste but has a distinctive rich aroma, making it a steady seller in the coffee bean category and highly preferred.

Moreover, Lotte Mart enhanced product intuitiveness by adding sun and moon illustrations on the packaging so customers can easily know the best time to drink each coffee just by looking at it. The three Sweet Hug coffee beans come in 500g packages and are sold nationwide at 12,980 KRW each.

Meanwhile, due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, the number of home cafe enthusiasts enjoying coffee at home is increasing. Lotte Mart's coffee bean sales from March to October this year grew by 15.3% compared to the same period last year. As customers seeking coffee beans continue to increase, the sales proportion of coffee beans among all coffee products has risen annually: 6.1% in 2018, 9.3% in 2019, and 12.5% in 2020 (January to October).

Hwang Eun-bi, MD (Merchandiser) of Lotte Mart Food PB Development Team, said, “As customer demand for coffee beans continues to grow, we developed products that can be enjoyed according to different times of the day. We will continue to strive to introduce products that meet trends in the future.”

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