"Heavier and Bigger"... CU Sells 5 Million Units of 'Overwhelming Convenience Meals'

Responding to Lunchflation by Increasing Weight and Size

Convenience store CU's 'Overwhelming Ready Meals,' launched with enhanced product competitiveness, have gained popularity with cumulative sales of 5 million units. CU's strategy is to respond to lunch inflation by offering ready meals with increased weight and size at reasonable prices.

The Overwhelming Ready Meals series includes a total of 16 types such as dosirak (lunch boxes), gimbap, triangular gimbap, sandwiches, and salads. Key products include 'Keudak Jeongsik' and 'Ham Cheese Katsu Donkatsu Jeongsik.' The Keudak Jeongsik features a large smoked chicken leg that fills one hand, placed on fried rice, while the Donkatsu Jeongsik has a thick pork cutlet placed whole on rice. These two products have driven the sales of the Overwhelming Ready Meals series, selling over 500,000 units within two months of launch.

The secret to the popularity of Overwhelming Ready Meals lies in their price and quality. Compared to existing products, the Overwhelming Ready Meals have increased both weight and size. CU even created new lunch box containers capable of holding larger ingredients for the launch of these meals.

Thanks to the popularity of Overwhelming Ready Meals, CU's ready meal sales growth rates have steadily maintained high growth annually: 16.4% in 2022, 26.1% last year, and 32.8% this year (January to April). Especially with the recent rise in temperatures leading to increased outdoor activities, the month-on-month sales growth rate of ready meals as of this month showed double-digit increases across all convenience store zones. Parks recorded 55.6%, university areas 34.1%, tourist spots 30.1%, stadiums 23.5%, and rest areas 23.0%, respectively.

No Sumin, MD of the Ready Meal Team at BGF Retail, said, “CU will continue to introduce new concept products that have never existed before and will become the representative channel for convenience store ready meals.”