[k-Food Hidden Hero] 3-Minute Curry Original Fame Maintained, Ready Meals 'All Kill' from Cupbap to Pizza

⑬ Ottogi
Targeting Local Specialties like Busan Dwaeji Gukbap
Cupbap Combining Quality and Quantity
Competing with Low-Temperature Aged and Natural Cheese Pizza

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Hye-seon] When tracing back the history of Home Meal Replacement (HMR), Ottogi stands out. In 1981, Ottogi introduced the concept of “Ottogi 3-Minute Curry,” which could be enjoyed by heating it for just three minutes, marking the first era of convenience foods in Korea. Since then, Ottogi has continued its legacy as the original convenience food company by offering cup rice meals infused with a mother’s homemade taste, regional specialty foods, and side dishes, including soups, stews, and broths tailored to Korean palates.

Competing with ‘Regional Flavors’

According to market research firm Nielsen Korea, the ambient temperature soup, broth, and stew convenience food market grew by 25.5% compared to 2019, reaching 312.2 billion KRW last year. Including internet and home shopping markets, total sales are expected to exceed 400 billion KRW. Ottogi is targeting the soup, broth, and stew market with regional specialty dishes known for their distinctive flavors. The lineup includes eight varieties such as Busan-style pork soup (dwaeji-gukbap) gomtang, Daegu-style beef yukgaejang, Naju-style beef gomtang, Mapo-style chadol doenjang jjigae, and Suwon-style radish greens galbitang.

The “Seoul-style beef health soup” features a spicy and savory broth with beef brisket, taro stems, and oyster mushrooms. It is a health-boosting dish made with a rich broth simmered from beef bones and brisket, seasoned with doenjang (fermented soybean paste), Cheongyang chili peppers, kudzu juice, and oriental raisin tree extract. The “Busan-style pork soup gomtang” captures the deep flavor unique to Busan’s representative delicacy, pork soup. The broth is richly simmered with pork bones, generously filled with pork meat, and enhanced with natural ingredients like bay leaves, whole peppercorns, and ginger.

Cup Rice Market Trend: ‘Value for Satisfaction’

Cup rice meals, which pack a full meal into one cup, are also popular. This market has steadily grown from 310 billion KRW in 2017 to 360 billion KRW in 2018, 400 billion KRW in 2019, and 440 billion KRW last year. Ottogi has solidified its position as the second-largest player with over 30% market share by offering generous portions and diverse flavors that enhance “value for satisfaction” (gasimbi).

Since launching six convenient cup rice products such as kimchi tuna rice bowl and spicy pork rice bowl in September 2016, Ottogi now offers a total of 23 varieties including rice bowls, bibimbap, hot pot rice, stew rice, and soup rice. Recently, responding actively to consumer feedback that the rice portion in cup rice was somewhat insufficient, Ottogi increased the rice quantity by 20% in all 23 cup rice products. “Ottogi Cup Rice” is characterized by enhancing the unique taste of each menu and including large chunks of ingredients.

Growth in Frozen Snack Market

As the culture of “home viewing” (jipgwan)?enjoying professional baseball, performances, and movies at home?takes hold, frozen snack convenience foods that are easy to enjoy have gained attention. Frozen pizza, which can be cooked in an air fryer in five minutes, expanded its market size to 85.4 billion KRW last year, a growth of about 49% compared to 2019. Since introducing frozen pizza in 2016, Ottogi has maintained its number one position. In 2019, it elevated the quality of frozen pizza by applying low-temperature fermented dough and natural cheese.

Alongside this, frozen snacks such as the French-style sandwich “Ottogi Croque Monsieur,” made by spreading sauce on bread and topping it with ham and cheese before baking in an oven, and the “Mexican Burrito,” featuring chewy and mild thin wheat tortillas filled with cheese, have emerged as meal substitutes, further expanding the frozen snack market.

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