Emart Operates 133 Stores
Lotte Mart Launches Cooking Dessert
Homeplus Sees 20% Sales Increase in Montblanc Products
Competition among large supermarkets in the bakery sector is intensifying. They are showcasing freshly baked bread made daily through private brands (PB) and continuously launching room temperature and refrigerated products.
According to Emart on the 7th, there are 133 bakery brand stores including Boulangerie (52 stores), eBakery (79 stores), and Milk & Honey (2 stores). Boulangerie handles premium products, while eBakery offers cost-effective products in medium to large quantities.
An Emart official explained, “The in-store bakeries are operated by Shinsegae Food, and we are strengthening competitiveness by expanding the Boulangerie brand and improving the quality of freshly made pizzas.”
SSG.com operates the Saebyeokbbang brand, which means “dawn bread” or freshly baked bread. Bread is produced and delivered at the baking center inside the Neo003 center in Gimpo, selling over 40 types of products including Milk & Honey and The Menagerie. Products are produced twice daily, at dawn and evening, and immediately stocked in the logistics center to be delivered to customers through dawn delivery and SSG delivery services.
Lotte Mart has opened Pungmiso stores at three locations: Max Executive, Mokpo, and Changwon Central, offering high-quality bakery products. Bakery specialists bake fresh bread daily from 6 a.m., and products baked on the same day are sold out on the same day as a principle. The signature product, French Baguette, uses French flour and is made through a 24-hour low-temperature fermentation process applying the Polish fermentation method. To create bread that preserves the flavor of raw materials, Lotte Mart’s Food Innovation Center’s professional chefs and bakery team collaborated for a year to develop the product.
On the 27th of last month, they launched five PB products including Cooking Butter Salt Bread, Souffl? Roll Cake, and Fresh Cream Mini Choux. These products ranked 1st to 5th in sales within the frozen dessert category. A Lotte Mart merchandise planner (MD) said that to offer products with the taste and quality of specialty bakeries, they traveled to Japan for a year and formed a technical partnership with the confectionery specialist company Pasco.
Models are cooking at Lotte Mart, introducing butter salt bread, souffle roll cake, and more. [Photo by Lotte Mart]
Homeplus operates the Montblanc? bakery, and sales from January to April this year increased by 20% compared to the previous year. To produce fresh and high-quality bread, they have a directly managed bakery factory in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province, where employees bake bread daily using an in-house handmade production method. For quality standardization, the dough is made at the Anseong factory and baked on the same day at the store.
Homeplus online has a dedicated Montblanc? section. Even when ordering online, customers can receive bread made at the store delivered on the same day, or choose a delivery date 2-3 days later. They offer a variety of breads including sandwich bread, morning rolls, bagels, cakes, muffins, cookies, and bakery dough.
A representative from a large supermarket said, “We will provide good bread that suits the tastes of many customers with the best possible quality,” adding, “We will break the prejudice that supermarket bread is inferior to specialty bakeries and not fresh.”
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