Cleanwrap selling flagship sanitary gloves on Amazon

Cleanwrap, a leading food packaging company in South Korea, said Wednesday that its flagship Clean Gloves are now available through the US shopping website Amazon. The company’s sanitary gloves received attention during the general election, held April 15, when 1.25 million packs (or 60 million gloves) were supplied to polling stations across the country to prevent voters from contracting COVID-19. According to the company, its sanitary gloves and plastic bags are made of nontoxic mate

June 10, 2020

OB’s flagship beer Cass receives Superior Taste Award

Oriental Brewery said Tuesday its flagship beer Cass Fresh and Cass Light have received the 2020 Superior Taste Award held by International Taste Institute. According to South Korea’s largest beer maker by revenue, Cass Fresh received the award with one-star rating, which is granted to participants scoring above 70 percent. Cass Light received two stars, scoring between 80-90 percent. ITQI was established in Brussels, Belgium, in 2005, serving as an evaluation body for food and bevera

June 9, 2020

Convenience stores' competition for delivery services rises amid non-contact trend

Convenience store operators in South Korea are racing to beef up delivery services as a rise in the number of one-person households and the new coronavirus outbreak have raised demand for door-to-door services. Having an upper hand over major discount stores in terms of consumer accessibility, convenient stores are tapping delivery services as an additional sales channel amid the non-contact trend. BGF Retail Co., which operates the convenience store chain CU, introduced its delivery service

June 9, 2020

Market Kurly’s 315 workers test negative for COVID-19

Market Kurly said Friday that 315 people linked to a COVID-19 case at its logistic center have all tested negative for the disease. The online grocery platform had one virus infection case involving a part-time worker at one of its logistics centers in Songpa-gu, Seoul, on May 27, which prompted the company to conduct the round of virus tests on employees and visitors at the center. Market Kurly and the government sorted out and designated 315 people linked to the center and had them tested

June 5, 2020

E-mart Traders to release 20 million face masks at 26 cents each

E-mart Traders said Friday it will roll out 20 million single-use face masks, selling them at a price of 320 won (26 cents) per mask. The warehouse hypermarket store, which is part of the country’s retail giant Shinsegae Group, said it will sell a box of 50 face masks for 15,980 won at its 18 stores across the country from Saturday. Purchases will be limited to one box per person. E-mart Traders said it was able to sell the product -- a three-layered face mask with a melt-blown filter

June 5, 2020

Gmarket holds video call fan session for Korean singer Kim Woo-seok

Gmarket Global Shop, an e-commerce platform operated by eBay, held an autograph session for Korean singer Kim Woo-seok via video call, receiving positive comments from global fans as events are being canceled due to COVID-19 outbreak, the firm said Thursday. The event was hosted to celebrate the release of Kim’s first solo album “1st Desire (Greed)” on Sunday. As many concerts and physical events are being canceled due to the novel coronavirus outbreak across the world, the

June 4, 2020

Coupang dragged down by virus outbreak, labor issues

The rapid growth of e-commerce giant Coupang has been clipped recently upon the recent outbreak of COVID-19 infections at its logistics centers in addition to sudden deaths of its workers in the past months. On Wednesday, a civic group filed a complaint against Coupang’s founder and CEO Kim Bom-suk, claiming that his firm failed to inform customers properly about the COVID-19 cases of its employees. The civic group, named “People’s livelihood solution committee (directly tr

June 3, 2020

SPC Group to open Shake Shack store in Daegu

SPC Group said Wednesday it will open a Shake Shack store in Daegu in July, its first in the city. According to the company, the new Daegu store will be located in Dongseongno Spark, a shopping mall with a theme park. It is the second outlet to be launched outside Seoul metropolitan area, after the store in Busan, which opened in July 2019. The lot is currently covered with a colorful hoarding art depicting the city’s skyline, for which the company cooperated with Xeva a graffiti arti

June 3, 2020

Pernod Ricard renews Ballantine’s bottle design

Pernod Ricard Korea said Wednesday it has renewed the bottle design of Ballantine’s 30-year, its flagship scotch whisky, and presented a limited edition of a drink ritual kit. According to the liquor maker, the new packaging design has added modern tint to strengthen Ballantine’s 30-year iconic luxuriousness. The new bottle boasts a sleek exterior, and the golden label design stresses its best quality. All of Ballantine’s 17-year, 21-year and 30-year products come with a ren

June 3, 2020

Homeplus launches raw fish delivery service on app

Homeplus said Wednesday it has partnered with Badajari, a seafood company, to launch a raw fish delivery service on its mobile shopping app. The app, dubbed Homplus Fish market, is a service linked to Noryangjin Fish Market, aimed to expand the distribution network for the traditional market, the company said. The new service offers a same-day delivery of raw fish menus prepared from the Noryangjin Fish Market. An order made before 2 p.m. would be delivered to the customer by 6 to 8 p.m. on

June 3, 2020

Online shopping jumps 12.5% in April on pandemic-led e-commerce shift

SEJONG -- Online shopping jumped 12.5 percent from a year earlier in April, data showed Wednesday, as the coronavirus pandemic prompted consumers to buy more goods via e-commerce platforms. The value of online transactions came to 12.26 trillion won ($9.98 billion) in the month, up 1.3 trillion won from the same month last year, according to the data from Statistics Korea. The increase followed a 11.8 percent on-year gain in March. The sharp increase in March was largely attributed to the p

June 3, 2020

LG Household & Health Care gains license to sell Physiogel in Asia, North America

LG Household & Health Care said Tuesday it has gained a business license to sell GlaxoSmithKline’s skin care brand Physiogel in Asia and North America, for 190 billion won ($155 million). Physiogel is a derma cosmetics brand that was launched in Germany, and is sold in a number of countries in Asia, Europe and South America. The company said it plans to strengthen its presence in the global markets with its acquirement of Physiogel, which comes after the company’s takeover o

June 2, 2020

Lotte Shopping introduces once-a-week remote working system

Lotte Shopping said Tuesday it has introduced a new remote working system for its 3,200 employees working at its headquarters, whereby they can work at home once a week. The retail arm of Lotte Group is the second affiliate to introduce the remote working system, after Lotte Holdings, which initiated the system from May 25. Lotte Department Store, Lotte Supermarket and the e-commerce branch introduced the system from Monday, while Lotte Mart is due to start beginning this month. Lohbs, its h

June 2, 2020

Amorepacific shares ‘ABC Spirit’ pledge with employees worldwide

Amorepacific Group, a leading cosmetics firm here, said Tuesday it has set a new action principle “ABC Spirit” for employees in South Korea and around the world to share. Holding a proclamation ceremony at the Seoul headquarter in Seoul on Monday, the company’s Chairman Suh Kyung-bae announced the “five action plans” connected with the ABC spirit, to its employees in both South Korea and overseas branches. “I will do my best to get through this period of

June 2, 2020

Nongshim buys more kelps to meet surging demand for chapaguri

Following the global popularity of chapaguri -- instant noodle dish that came into the limelight due to Oscar-winning movie “Parasite” -- Nongshim said Monday it is participating in auctions to purchase kelps, a key ingredient, to meet surging demand. Chapaguri is a mixture of Nongshim’s Chapaghetti black bean instant noodle and Neoguri, a soup-based instant noodle. The menu was translated as “ram-don” in English subtitles in the movie. According to No

June 1, 2020

Amorepacific launches vegan-friendly cosmetics brand Enough Project

Amorepacific, a leading cosmetics manufacturer here, launched Enough Project on Monday, a vegan-friendly lifestyle brand highlighting practicality. Under the new brand, Amorepacific presented seven new products including cleansing oil, essential lotion products and sun screen. The products are all vegan-friendly, with no animal testing and no animal-derived ingredients, the company said. According to the company, its main moisturizing cream has beta-hyaluronic acid, which is 1.5 times more a

June 1, 2020

Samyang Foods sells export-version of Spicy Buldak Spicy Chicken noodles in Korea

Samyang Foods said Monday it will open limited sales of the export-version of Buldak Spicy Chicken noodles on its online mall for Korean consumers for the first time. The products include the original Spicy Buldak Chicken noodle, Carbonara Spicy Buldak Chicken noodle, 3X Haek Buldak Spicy Chicken noodle -- known as 3X Fire Noodle among non-Korean speakers -- and Corn Spicy Buldak Chicken noodle. All four products do not include meat-derived ingredients, the company said. While the original a

June 1, 2020

Concerns spread over logistics center-linked COVID-19

Consumers are increasingly concerned by the vast COVID-19 infections linked to major e-commerce logistics centers in South Korea on Thursday, with authorities scurrying to track and contain the spread, while companies received mixed views for their contrasting countermeasures. Since an employee working at Coupang’s logistics center in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, was first confirmed to have contracted the virus Saturday, related cases stood at 82 as of 2 p.m. Thursday. Coupang shut down

May 28, 2020

Coupang closes Bucheon logistics center over COVID-19 cases

E-commerce platform giant Coupang said Tuesday it has closed its Bucheon logistics center in Gyeonggi Province and conducted disinfection of the facility after at least 10 COVID-19 cases are confirmed to be linked with its employees there. According to the company, it will take additional fumigation measures at the center and also check on around 3,700 employees, which includes workers at the center and also those who visited the center from May 12 to Monday. “We sterilize the products

May 26, 2020

Starbucks Korea expands Teavana stores as tea gains popularity

Starbucks Korea said Tuesday that it has expanded the number of Reserve stores selling Teavana drinks to 52 from 13 amid the growing popularity of tea. According to the coffee chain, sales of tea drinks have grown about 20 percent annually since it launched Teavana here in 2016. Its flagship Honey Ruby Grapefruit Black Tea, rolled out in 2016, is now its third-most-frequently ordered drink, after Americano and caffe latte, among customers in their 20s, Starbucks Korea said. Sales of green te

May 26, 2020