SSG.com, This Year's Meal Kit Keyword is 'Flagship'... "Emphasizing Gourmet Experience"

Hotel and Restaurant Collaboration Meal Kits Gain Popularity

Popular meal kit products on SSG.com. (Photo by SSG.com)

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] As ready-to-eat meal consumption became routine this year, gourmet trends have expanded into the meal kit category.

On the 16th, SSG.com presented the keyword "Flag食" based on an analysis of meal kit category sales from January to November. Flag食 is a compound word combining the English word "Flagship," meaning top or representative, and the Korean character 식 (食), meaning food. It reflects consumer tendencies that value gourmet experiences, such as seeking hotel or famous restaurant products when purchasing ready-to-eat meals.

Hotel ready-to-eat meals recorded high sales again this year. The popularity of Chosun Hotel’s Chinese cuisine products, which led the popularization of hotel meal kits by introducing Uni Jjajang and Samseon Jjamppong in 2020, continued. In particular, fried rice varieties such as Samseon Fried Rice and Cantonese Fried Rice showed a high growth rate of over 70% in sales. This year, SSG.com diversified its products by partnering with Chosun Hotel & Resort to pre-launch premium Korean and Japanese menus, currently selling a total of about 30 products.

Premium ready-to-eat meals reproducing signature menus from famous restaurants were also launched. Starting with bacon from Yuyongwook Barbecue Lab earlier this year, they introduced collaboration products such as Carbonara from Bawi Pasta Bar, a fresh pasta course restaurant that is difficult to even get reservations for, steak from Butcher’s Cut steakhouse, and lobster steak from Vikings Wharf, a seafood specialty restaurant. As a result, the Jambon Beurre sandwich released together with the charcuterie Salt House ranked first in the category’s popular products within a month of its launch.

SSG.com is holding the “Merry Christmas in Food Market” event until the 28th of this month. They carefully selected famous restaurant meal kits, ready-to-eat steaks, and hotel bakery items, offering them at discounts of up to 40%. Until the 31st, they are also running the “Holiday at Home” promotion, a group purchase event for popular home party menus. Customers who purchase more than 30,000 KRW worth of event products and enter the draw will receive up to 20,000 KRW back in SSG Money depending on cumulative sales volume.

An SSG.com official said, “We coined the new term Flag食 to reflect that gourmet trends are shifting to meal kit consumption. We will diversify collaborations with new popular restaurants and run linked promotions to solidify our position as a meal kit flagship store.”

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