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Koreans have a long tradition of seeking functional effects in their regular diet.  As a result, Korean market is never short of new functional food trends.  One of the hottest trends today is “color food diet”, which stresses importance of eating food of various color in a balanced way.  Interestingly, this trend has adopted some of the theories of traditional folk medicine to evolve into a food therapy by extreme followers.
The rise of color food diet has brought significant impact on the sales of products in retail stores and restaurants.  As you can imagine, sales of those products spotlighted by color food opinion leaders has seen explosive growth.  Blueberries, tomato, and broccoli are good examples.
Color food fever has seen its climax in black food as many consumers interpret this concept as “the darker the better”.  From squid ink to black ginseng to black sesame … Anything black would have more chance of getting attention in the market.
The market is flooded with so many information everyday.  As a result, consumers are getting tired of digesting new information.  “Story telling” is one of the hottest marketing tactic that reflects this social trend.  Story telling products try to develop emotional appeal to the consumers by adopting package design, product name, or advertisement of certain theme to increase the likelihood of the product being accepted or remembered by the target consumers.  For example, this Denmark Mocha Latte newly launched by DongWon Dairy Food has a painting by Modiliani, a Danish painter, on the front label with additional stories about the painter’s life on the side label.  Another example is “Rolli Polli”, a newly open Sushi restaurant in Seoul that target young consumers.  The interior design of the restaurant, including the miniature home shown here, tries to deliver a story about a couple who accidentally met in a car accident and got developed into lovers.  These stories presented may look totally unrelated to the function or nature of the subject product, but the Korean consumers have welcomed this emotional approach as they found it appealing, fun, and humane.
Corn tassel tea by Gwang-dong.  Another hot trend today is product developed under the traditional folk therapy.  One big benefit of using traditional theme is you do not need to claim any functional effect, which will keep your product under the strict government regulation of functional food code, on the label because consumers already have the connection built in their minds from long years of unspoken teaching by their mothers and neighbors.  Korean consumers also tend to believe that traditionally used ingredients are safe.  Corn tassel tea, which incorporates an old folk therapy of using corn tassel for skin tightening effect, is one of the most successful products in the market today. 150 million bottles sold last year, it took over one third of the bottled tea market.
Black bean is another ingredient that appears frequently in folk therapies for various physiological effects.  This black bean tea by Haitai Beverage made a successful landing by selling 10 million bottles in 4 months of launching in 2007.
Another example under this trend is this Black Garlic Yoghurt by Korea Yakurt which appeals to male consumers who are seeking new source of stamina.  They sold 10 million bottles within 5 months of launching
Koreans are facing ever busier lifestyle due to a rapid increase of duel income families and single-parent households.  At the same time, more people are watching what they are eating. As a result, demand for diet-conscious meal replacement snacks that can provide easy and healthy meal solution is on a rise. Grain Stories by Nongshim Kellogg quickly built up the market share by targeting diet & health conscious segment of the population.
 $1 million sales per month
 Low calorie, Whole grain
 No sugar, Nutrient enriched
Diet bars are another product that are hot today.  Among numerous contenders, these two products stand out as stars partly because of their strategy of focusing on distribution channels where target consumers are likely to shop.  Diet Bar by Daesang WellLife made an early success by selling exclusively in TV home shopping ($0.5 million per month).  Calorie Balance by Haitai concentrated on convenience store market to target busy office workers and became one of the top 10 sellers.
Soybean based products, such as tofu and soymilk, have also capitalized on the rise of meal replacement diet snacks.  This Lite Meal Tofu & Bean Juice by Poolmoowon offers an easy, quick yet nutritious meal solution.  (Easy, quick, nutritious meal solution, Soybean: natural, diet image)
Soon Doo Yoo by Maeil quickly expanded market share in the category as target audience, house wives and young students, was sold on the idea of eating more Calcium. (Easy, quick, nutritious meal solution;  Can be served hot; Large amounts of Calcium enriched)
Although Instant coffee still govern the market, espresso is expanding the market share quickly as more Koreans now want real coffee.  Along with new Starbucks outlets popping up on the street, the number of bottled espresso coffee on the retail shelf is also rising.
One interesting trend to notice is that Koreans are finally finding their way to bitter tasting coffee.  According to Starbucks Korea, Americano was the #1 selling product in their stores in 2007 for the first time in history.  Cafe Latte had been long time leader.
Instant coffee industry has also come up with diet product to target the diet-conscious segment of the population.  Maxim ½ Calories by Dongseo, market leader, is now followed by copy cats by other competitors.
Prosumers is a newly emerging terminology in the market that means the group of consumers who are equipped with expert-like knowledge and experience about the target product and have a significant impact on how the product is accepted by the rest of the regular consumers.  Many products newly launched recently in Korea target prosumers because gaining prosumers support will result in strong word of mouth effect spreading quickly through the general consumers.
Dream Cacao, premium chocolate line newly launched by Lotte a couple of years ago is a good example of prosumer product.  While no other local supplier paid attention to prosumers’ concern about the actual cacao content in the chocolate product, Dream Cacao succeeded in getting prosumers support by disclosing the cacao content and consequently became the #1 seller in the chocolate category in the market.
Supremo, a premium quality instant coffee, newly launched by Tasters Choice is another good example of prosumer product.  In the launching campaign, Nestle emphasized the fact that the coffee was made out of made top grade Ethiopian gold bean to appeal to prosumers.
This instant noodle by CJ became the #1 seller in the category by building prosumers’ support through a promotional campaign that invited prosumers to enter a lucky draw to visit some of the best noodle restaurants in Japan.
#1 Seller in the category
 High quality ingredients, including
  top grade Katsuobusi
  (steam dried tuna flake)
 Easy, quick but restaurant quality
  taste
Wagyu, a branded premium Ausie beef has successfully expanded sales in Korea by hosting promotional events in some of the most famous steak restaurants and delivering targeted message to prosumers.
While quality is becoming the key issue in the premium segment of the market, consumers in the lower-end segment is getting more and more concerned about the price and value, particularly under the economic recession that is likely to stay around the world for some time.  It is large retailers that are leading the hot rise of value-oriented products.  In particular, large retailers are making heavy efforts to increase the sales of so called private brand products, products made exclusively for the retailer.  E-Mart, the biggest retail company in Korea unveiled an aggressive plan to increase the share of PB products from 9.7% today to 23% within 3 years.  This means a serious threat to suppliers of branded products.
Korean consumers tend to eagerly accept new products by new technology or breakthrough as far as the products offer health benefits.  Too Tee by Korea Yakurt is a new yoghurt that claims to help protect cavity problem. 150,000 bottles/day within 2 months of launching. Contains special lactic bacteria and herb extract for tooth care function. Tooth shaped bottle
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Deep sea water is another hot product that many food companies are trying to launch.  This bottled fresh deep sea water is an outcome of joint venture between provinces on the Eastern seaboard and CJ.
Trans-fat issue still prevails in the market as new government regulation mandates labeling since Dec 2007 (Below 0.2g/serving = Zero).  As a result, local suppliers have made efforts to switch over to transfat products.  For example, CJ, a leading food manufacturer, declared in 2007 that all CJ products are free of transfat.  This is a transfat free mark adopted by CJ.
Lotteria, leading fast-food chain, announced that its French fries are trans-fat free (Aug. 2007)
Vons chicken, quick service, fried chicken restaurant, is another example that shows the impact of transfat issue.  They opened 100 stores within 8 months of launching (2007).  What attracted consumers to the store was the patented high pressure steamer oven which cooked chicken without oil, thus reducing trans-fat.
Products targeting well-being consumption trend are showing good growth in the market market.  For exmaple, Wine consumption continues to grow rapidly in Korea. Total import grew over 65% in 2007
 
“Banana is white”, a banana milk by Maeil mad a successful launching in 2007.  As the name hints that “No artificial color used”, it took a significant market share from #1 seller, “Banana Milk” by Binggre (yellow colored), by pointing out that the competitor was using artificial color.   40 million bottles sold within one year of launching (2007)
Non-fried noodle > no oil used
Seafood restaurants’ market share and sales doubles during 2007 as consumers sought healthier alternative for meat dishes.
Growing demand for seafood has also been observed in fast food restaurant segment.  This Thai themed seafood pizza newly launched by Domino’s sold 1million packs within 4 months of launching in 2007.
This new seasoning line by Daesang quickly built a significant market share by emphasizing that th product uses No MSG, artificial additives,
  sugar, preservatives ($2 million / month).
Even Mcdonald is changing to cope with well-being trend.  The newly renovated Mcdonald store looks just like a real cafe.