"I'm going to my brother's house and planning to prepare pork ribs for dinner."

At the end of last year, at the well-known Korean supermarket "Kmart" located in the Opera district (Rue Sainte-Anne) of Paris, France, Maxim Carbon (27 years old) was seen putting chili powder labeled "100% Taeyangcho," matsutake mushrooms, radish, gochujang, and frying powder into his shopping basket. Carbon, who first encountered Korean cuisine while living in Sillim-dong, Korea for a year, could not forget the taste and continued to seek out Korean restaurants in Paris after returning home. However, as most Korean restaurants in the area were run by Chinese owners and lacked the "authentic Korean taste," he eventually started making kimchi himself, frying chicken, and cooking various stews at home. Recently, he even made jokbal (braised pig's trotters) himself, using YouTube recipes as a reference.

Maxim Carbon's Shopping Basket. Ingredients for making spicy pork ribs are packed in the shopping basket. Photo by Minji Lee.

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Carbon's parents' favorite food is Bibigo frozen dumplings from CJ CheilJedang. They always keep them stocked in the freezer. He explained, "Korean food is easy to cook because it is based on sauces like soy sauce, gochujang, and doenjang," adding, "As I often cook Korean food at home, my family has become interested as well, and now we enjoy it together."

Kmart is the place where you can most vividly experience the French enthusiasm for Korean cuisine. As scenes of eating Korean food are repeatedly featured in Korean dramas and content, more consumers are seeking to taste Korean food products firsthand. In addition to Korean processed foods such as Buldak Bokkeum Myeon, the store offers a wide range of ready-to-eat Korean foods, including triangle kimbap, gimbap, Korean-style sandwiches, fried chicken and dakgangjeong, jangjorim, kimchi (green onion and napa cabbage), seasoned vegetable side dishes, and hot soups.

Ready meals placed on the warming shelf. Fried chicken, bulgogi, and kimchi fried rice, as well as Japanese-style rice bowls interpreted in a Korean style, are being sold. Chicken is the most popular food among locals.

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The best-selling items are gimbap, sandwiches, and kimchi. In particular, after the Netflix series "K-Pop Demon Hunters" gained global popularity, sales of gimbap have increased noticeably. Gimbap cut in half, rather than sliced piece by piece, is selling better.

As a result, at the Champs-?lys?es branch, which offers the largest variety of ready meals, sales of ready meals have increased by about 60% compared to 2020. This has made a significant contribution to annual sales growth, with annual revenue in 2024 reaching 27.8 million euros, an increase of about 28% (6 million euros) compared to 2021 (21.8 million euros). The main sources of revenue are Korean food (34%) and ready meals (34%).

The combo lunchbox containing half-cut gimbap and fried chicken is one of the most popular ready meals at Kmart among locals in France. Soups include gamjatang and kimchi jjigae.

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The newly introduced seasoned vegetable side dishes have also been well received. Kimchi and seasoned vegetables are not consumed as side dishes with rice or soup, but rather as simple meals similar to salads.

At a simple table set up in a corner of the mart, locals could be seen enjoying kimchi with chopsticks like a salad. Yujeong Hee, a designer at Kmart, said, "Ready meals are being introduced as customized products for local consumers," adding, "In the case of kimchi and ready meals, the seasoning is adjusted to be less intense, and the descriptions are written intuitively to help consumers understand."

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France is the gateway to the European continent. Global trends tend to spread from the United States to all of Europe and the Middle East via Paris, France. Europe is still in the early stages of K-brand expansion. In the case of K-Beauty, it emerged as a mainstream trend from December 2024. As Chosun Beauty Sunscreen from Gudai Global gained popularity in the United States and the United Kingdom, K-Beauty content began to appear more frequently in the TikTok algorithms of French consumers. The speed of spread through social media (SNS) accelerated, and as more Millennials & Gen Z consumers in France experienced K-Beauty firsthand, demand surged rapidly. It was at this time that the prestigious department stores of Paris began hosting K-Beauty pop-up stores to attract brands.

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K-Beauty's competitiveness lies in ▲high-function, high-efficacy products▲and reasonable pricing. Korean cosmetics ODM companies such as Cosmax and Kolmar Korea have enhanced their research and development capabilities and quickly reflected consumer demand in their products. Among French consumers, it is already recognized that, in terms of formula and ingredient competitiveness, K-Beauty basic skincare products surpass derma-cosmetics or luxury cosmetics sold in pharmacies. In fact, luxury brands are now following the trend of PDRN ingredients popularized by K-Beauty. Last year, Lanc?me, a cosmetics brand under the L'Or?al Group, confirmed the effectiveness and popularity of PDRN and launched basic skincare products by extracting PDRN from roses.

Stable distribution has also played a significant role. SiliconTwo, a global beauty e-commerce platform, established a logistics hub in Poland to target the European market and built a supply system that minimizes inventory time differences. This enabled simultaneous and rapid supply of products to both department stores and online channels, reducing the burden of overseas expansion for individual brands. SiliconTwo is currently considering additional offline store openings in Paris and plans to target new markets such as the Middle East, where it already operates a logistics warehouse in Abu Dhabi.

Delphine Herve Toura, a merchandiser (MD) who has worked in the French beauty industry for 30 years, said, "In the past, K-Beauty received brief attention in France in 2015 and 2019, but could not sustain it due to COVID-19," adding, "The current K-Beauty is different from the past in that it is recognized as professional skincare focused on function and ingredients."

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While K-Food and K-Beauty are in the market expansion phase, K-Fashion is still struggling to establish itself in its home turf. In the Marais district of Paris, where K-Fashion brand stores are concentrated, there was a noticeable decrease in foot traffic. A local brand store employee said, "Sales in this area are split about evenly between locals and tourists, but recently, sales to locals have dropped significantly," explaining, "Due to high inflation and economic slowdown, consumer sentiment has weakened, and with the rise of online shopping, there aren't many people around even during Black Friday." It appears that tourist sales have also declined as the winter season has begun.

The Marais district is known as the heart of Parisian fashion. It is home to a variety of brands, including Uniqlo, local street brand Dr?le de Monsieur, global favorites such as Comme des Gar?ons and Supreme. At the far right end of the Marais district, leading Korean designer and high-end fashion brands such as Songzio, System, and Wooyoungmi have established their presence.

Exterior view of the Songzio store. On the left, Songzio menswear and ZZERO products are sold. On the right is the women's clothing store that opened in September last year.

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