Emart's Shine Muscat Gift Sets 'Popular'... "Even Surpassed Geobong"

Shine Muscat Gift Set.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] The new grape variety Shine Muscat is pushing out the traditional leader, Geobong, and leading the growth of fruit gift sets.

According to Emart on the 10th, the proportion of Shine Muscat Lunar New Year gift sets in total fruit set sales increased from 1% in 2020 to 6% last year.

The domestic cultivation area of Shine Muscat is estimated to have expanded more than tenfold in five years, from 278 hectares in 2016 to 4,196 hectares as of December last year. In particular, last year, Shine Muscat surpassed Geobong, which had held the second-largest cultivation area domestically, becoming the second most widely cultivated variety in Korea. This year, it is expected to overtake Campbell Early, the top variety, to become the number one in cultivation area.

Thanks to the popularity of Shine Muscat, fruit gift sets are also regaining popularity. The proportion of fruit in total gift set sales had been declining since 2015 but returned to an upward trend in 2019 and has been steadily increasing since. Accordingly, Emart has doubled the quantity of Shine Muscat for gift sets this year compared to last year. Moreover, despite the rise in Shine Muscat prices compared to the previous year, the prices of major gift sets were lowered by up to 10%.

An Emart official said, “As Shine Muscat rapidly becomes popular and production increases every year, securing high-sugar-content and high-quality Shine Muscat produced by excellent farms will become more important than anything else. We will strive to offer the best products to customers based on industry-leading purchasing capabilities and an optimized distribution network.”

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