"Come to the Convenience Store"... Lunchbox and Ready Meal Battle for the 'Honchu-jok'

At GS25, a model is introducing the 'Pungseonghan Hangawi Bonaeso' lunchbox.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] Major convenience store chains have launched various lunchboxes and ready-to-eat products targeting 'Honchujok,' people spending Chuseok alone at home.

According to the industry on the 21st, GS25 introduced the 'Pungseonghan Gawi Bonaeso' lunchbox, consisting of nine side dishes including mushroom beef bulgogi, sweet pumpkin, ginkgo nuts, and assorted jeon. Following last year, with the increase in people not returning home during the holiday due to the COVID-19 impact, convenience store lunchbox sales are expected to rise significantly. In fact, the sales of the ‘Saehae Bokmani Badaso’ lunchbox launched by GS25 during last Lunar New Year increased by 38% compared to the previous year’s holiday lunchbox sales.

Seven Eleven released three Chuseok products: Hankki Yeonguso perilla oil bibimbap, Surisuri Sulsul assorted jeon, and Surisuri Sulsul five-color japchae. Hankki Yeonguso perilla oil bibimbap is a holiday lunchbox richly filled with eight representative namul (seasoned vegetable) ingredients commonly enjoyed during the holidays, such as radish greens, aster scaber, chamnamul, and bracken. It includes separate portions of Korean pork bulgogi to be eaten together with the bibimbap, and instead of gochujang, it contains soy sauce and savory perilla oil to mix with.

Surisuri Sulsul assorted jeon includes a variety of jeon typically enjoyed during the holidays, such as chili jeon, omisanjeok, donggeurangttaeng, kimchi jeon, seafood chive jeon, mung bean jeon, and tofu jeon. Surisuri Sulsul five-color japchae maximizes texture by adding five-color toppings including chewy glass noodles, pork, mushrooms, carrots, eggs, and chives.

Emart24 is selling the holiday lunchbox 'Hangawi Man Gatara Hansangcharim' until early next month. This lunchbox contains representative holiday side dishes such as braised pork ribs, japchae, assorted jeon, and namul, as well as a traditional sweet rice cake dessert called yakgwa. Until the end of this month, a 2,000 KRW discount is offered on the selling price, and customers receive one free item of either bottled water or canned sikhye. An additional 2,000 KRW discount is available when paying with the event card. Additionally, Peacock assorted jeon and Peacock white songpyeon and mos leaf songpyeon are also sold.

An Emart24 official said, “Considering that many Honchujok customers will not return home this Chuseok, we launched lunchboxes so they can enjoy a variety of holiday foods at home and prepared exceptional discount benefits.”

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