HiteJinro Surpasses 100 Million KRW Employee Salaries for 3 Consecutive Years... Food Industry '3 Trillion Club' Average Doubled

Last Year Total Salary and Welfare Benefits 113.65 Million KRW
First Industry Breakthrough Over 100 Million KRW in 2021... Impact of Long-term Employees
Food 30 Trillion Club Average Employee Salary 56.28 Million KRW

Orion, Pulmuone, Samyang Foods, Binggrae, etc.
Significant Average Salary Increase Based on Strong Performance

HiteJinro, the leading company in the domestic soju market, recorded an average annual salary of over 100 million KRW per employee for three consecutive years. This figure is more than twice as high as the average salary per employee at the '3 trillion KRW annual sales club' companies, which are considered benchmarks among large companies in the food and beverage industry.

According to HiteJinro's business report for last year, registered on the Financial Supervisory Service's electronic disclosure system on the 27th, the average salary per employee among the company's 3,066 employees was 113.65 million KRW. This amount includes salary, bonuses, performance incentives, and welfare benefits such as student loan support. It increased by 3.7 million KRW from 109.95 million KRW the previous year. Previously, HiteJinro became the first in the food and beverage industry to enter the era of an average annual salary exceeding 100 million KRW in 2021 with an average salary of 103.71 million KRW, and has maintained a similar level since then.

The representative soju, Chamisul, from HiteJinro is displayed at a large supermarket in downtown Seoul.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

An industry insider explained, "The food industry generally has lower salary levels compared to other sectors, and frequent job changes result in shorter average tenure, so the variation in average salary is not large. HiteJinro appears to have an unusually high average salary because it has a relatively large number of long-term employees."

In fact, as of last year, the average tenure of HiteJinro employees was 16 years and 11 months, which is longer compared to peers in the same industry where most employees have less than 10 years of service. Although the company conducted voluntary retirement for employees with more than 15 years of tenure in 2022 to resolve personnel stagnation, the total number of employees decreased by only 64, from 3,141 the previous year to 3,077.

The average salary per employee at nine food companies that joined the 3 trillion KRW annual sales club last year was 56.28 million KRW, showing a significant gap compared to HiteJinro. Among them, CJ CheilJedang had the highest average salary per employee at 75 million KRW. The average tenure of CJ CheilJedang employees is 7.7 years. Lotte Chilsung Beverage, which joined the 3 trillion KRW club for the first time last year, followed with an average salary of 67 million KRW per employee. The average tenure of its employees is 12.7 years, which is relatively long in the same industry. Next were Nongshim with an average salary of 59.4 million KRW, Daesang 58 million KRW, Lotte Wellfood 55.8 million KRW, CJ Freshway 52 million KRW, SPC Samlip 49.31 million KRW, Ottogi 47 million KRW, and Dongwon F&B 43 million KRW.

There are also companies that did not enter the 3 trillion KRW club but significantly increased their average employee salaries based on strong performance. Notably, Orion recorded 88 million KRW, an increase of 8 million KRW from the previous year, showing a higher salary level than competitors. Pulmuone also exceeded the average of the nine companies in the 3 trillion KRW club with 64.81 million KRW, up 6.81 million KRW from the previous year. Among the three major ramen companies, Samyang Foods saw its average salary rise by 6.68 million KRW to 49.75 million KRW. This was driven by clear achievements such as overseas sales exceeding 800 billion KRW for the first time, thanks to the popularity of Buldak Bokkeum Myun. Additionally, Binggrae, which surpassed 100 billion KRW in annual operating profit (112.3 billion KRW) for the first time since its founding in 1967, raised its average salary by 6.28 million KRW to 59.6 million KRW compared to the previous year.