Emart, Following Price Disruption with Quality Challenge... Major Overhaul in Food Distribution

New System Opened for Product Development and Operation
Focus on Expanding Buyers for Fruits and Pricing

Emart is putting its life on food products and further enhancing its competitiveness. The plan is to increase customer satisfaction for ‘grocery’ products sold at Emart, ranging from fresh foods such as fruits, livestock, and seafood to deli prepared foods sold in stores.

On the 22nd, Emart announced that to strengthen its grocery competitiveness, it is organizing the entire ‘A to Z’ process of grocery product distribution, from managing production sites to collecting customer feedback after product sales.

First, to develop and operate products, Emart recently launched the ‘e-Trend’ system. e-Trend is a system that allows a comprehensive view of product reviews left by customers on the Emart app and SSG.com, as well as opinions about products received at the Customer Value Center. It analyzes an average of 30,000 online and offline data points daily and 800,000 monthly, showing customer review keywords and trends in the increase or decrease of negative reviews. Especially when negative reviews sharply increase, it urgently alerts the responsible buyer.

The level of production site management where grocery products are born is also being raised. The first team to undergo reorganization is the fruit team. Since last year, due to abnormal weather conditions, crop conditions have worsened, making quality control and price defense more important.

Accordingly, Emart recently established a ‘Professional Inspection Team’ that visits production farms and partners to check quality. In addition to buyers visiting production sites to observe cultivation conditions and crop status, the team conducts surprise and frequent quality checks on fruits, significantly raising the management level. Emart’s fruit team has over 20 buyers, about twice as many as other companies in the same industry. With many members, each person is responsible for fewer items and focuses on improving the quality of their assigned fruits, working tirelessly day and night.

Buyers are continuously seeking ways to stabilize fruit prices. They are currently frequently visiting production sites and focusing on discovering new farms. Securing quantities from excellent farms through cash purchase contracts to minimize price increases is also a key strategy.

For example, in the case of oranges, they found a clue to prices in the reduction of the tariff quota. Last month, the government decided to lower the orange tariff quota early to prevent a simultaneous surge in fruit prices. Buyer Lee Gunam visited major orange suppliers in the United States to explain the situation in Korea. Eventually, it was agreed to increase the orange supply by 50% in January and February compared to the original plan. This buyer said, “It felt like suddenly going to the vast empty land in the U.S. and hitting my head,” but added, “In the end, we achieved an increase in supply and also instilled a positive perception among trading companies that ‘Emart is the fastest-moving company in Korea,’ so I am satisfied.”