Food Industry Strengthens Online Fresh Food Sales System

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Hye-seon] The online food market is experiencing an unprecedented boom due to the impact of COVID-19.

According to industry sources on the 26th, the size of the online food market last year reached 43.4 trillion KRW, growing 62.4% compared to the previous year (26.7 trillion KRW).

It is noteworthy that the purchase of meat is expanding online. According to Open Survey, the online purchase rate of meat products increased by 10.6% compared to the same period last year, and the industry analyzes that the competition among distributors for dawn delivery has promoted the popularization of fresh food purchases online.

The consumer behavior of purchasing fresh foods such as meat, which have a high purchase frequency, online can positively impact the increase in online mall visitors and sales growth. Accordingly, many companies are focusing on expanding their online sales systems by renewing their online malls to allow purchasing various lineups at once, launching services to buy fresher products, or strengthening cold chain systems.

Excel Beef is a premium U.S. beef brand that has ranked first in the domestic U.S. beef market for four consecutive years. Recently, as the online purchase of fresh foods has become popularized, Excel Beef revamped its homepage online mall to allow customers to easily view and purchase its diverse lineup at a glance.

The lineup was upgraded to include even Excel Beef’s top-tier products, which are usually hard to find, making online purchasing more convenient. Customers can purchase ‘Excel Cut,’ which is individually packaged in single servings, ‘Prime,’ the highest grade of U.S. beef, the premium brand ‘Sterling Silver’ of the upper choice grade, as well as the ‘Meyer Angus Beef’ brand products under the Natural Beef Program, which raises cattle naturally without any antibiotics or growth hormones through free-range grazing.

Dongwon Home Food’s livestock wholesale online mall, Geumcheon Meat, operates the domestic fresh meat brand ‘theShinseonJeongyuk,’ which delivers freshly slaughtered pork aged 3 to 5 days and carefully selected Korean beef from nationwide auctions directly to consumers at dawn. Fresh meat is delivered daily at dawn to consumers without any intermediate distribution channels.

‘theShinseonJeongyuk’ selects and delivers good quality meat directly to general consumers, handling 16 types of pork for various uses such as grilling, boiling, and stewing, as well as domestic beef including sirloin, tenderloin, chuck flap tail, and first-grade Korean beef. They also plan to introduce domestic ground beef soon.

Naver is also expanding its system to increase the distribution of fresh foods such as meat with the goal of ‘e-commerce growth.’ Partnering with CJ Logistics to expand logistics infrastructure, Naver plans to open a ‘Cold Chain Fulfillment (c-fulfillment) Center’ specialized in refrigerated and frozen storage for fresh foods in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, in August. The center will have a total floor area of 19,174㎡ (about 5,800 pyeong). As a result, next-day delivery of fresh foods is expected to be possible starting in August.

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