Lotte Food Unifies Ready Meals Under 'Shefood' Brand... Expands Ready Meal Lineup

Appearance of 'Chef Food', a home meal replacement brand by Lotte Food. (Photo by Lotte Food)

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Lotte Food is embarking on a full-scale expansion of its convenience food by redefining its home meal replacement (HMR) brand.

On the 7th, Lotte Food announced that it has relaunched its HMR brand 'Chefood.'

Chefood is Lotte Food's home meal replacement brand first introduced in 2009. The name is a combination of 'chef' and 'food,' meaning 'premium home meal replacement made with a chef's recipe.'

Since May this year, Lotte Food has unified its previously separate HMR brands, Chefood and La Cuisine, under the Chefood brand through a brand renewal, redefining it as a home meal replacement that offers "an experience where anyone can become a chef and enjoy a pleasant meal." In addition to redesigning the packaging, the company improved the quality of existing products based on consumer research before launching them.

The Chefood brand's product lineup features a portfolio covering various categories of convenience foods, ranging from products requiring simple cooking such as rice, noodles, dumplings, and fried items to ready-to-eat products like lunch boxes, gimbap, sandwiches, and salads.

Currently, rice, noodles, lunch boxes, gimbap, sandwiches, and salads are produced at the Pyeongtaek factory, while dumplings and fried items have started production at the Gimcheon factory. Grilled products such as tteokgalbi, donggeurangttaeng, and neobiani are produced at the Cheongju factory. In July, an additional HMR line will be introduced at the Gimcheon factory to produce convenience food products with enhanced quality. Through this, Lotte Food aims to increase its HMR sales from 203.1 billion KRW last year to 241 billion KRW this year, targeting a 19% growth.

Also, starting from May, the frozen HMR packaging of the Chefood brand uses r-PET film, a reusable material, for the first time in the food industry, with plans for further expansion. This is expected to reduce the use of new plastic materials by about 10 tons annually.

A Lotte Food official stated, "We plan to launch convenience food products with enhanced quality by introducing a new HMR line through additional investment," adding, "We will nurture Chefood as a representative brand in the HMR market."