'Baek Ham' at the Center of Price and Quality Controversy
Removed from The Born Mall Product List
The Born Korea Says, "Considering Resuming Sales Soon"
Baek Jong-won, the CEO of the dining-out company The Born Korea, recently stopped selling the canned ham brand "Baek Ham" on its official online mall amid a controversy over its high price. As the "Baek Ham controversy" continues day by day, it appears that the company is trying to minimize product exposure until sales resume.
According to industry sources on the 18th, The Born Korea recently removed the "Baek Ham Gift Set" from the sales list on The Born Mall. During the recent Lunar New Year holiday, a price controversy arose over the Baek Ham gift set, and since then, The Born Mall had marked the four types of the product as "sold out," but this time it was completely removed from the list. Currently, related search terms such as Baek Ham (ranked 1st), ham (3rd), and Baek Ham (4th) are ranked high on The Born Mall, but actual purchases are not possible. However, it is still possible to purchase on some online shopping platforms such as Coupang and SSG.com.
The 'Baekham Gift Set' has been removed from the sales list on 'The Born Mall,' Baekham's official online store. The Born Mall homepage
Regarding The Born Korea's suspension of Baek Ham sales on its own mall, some interpret it as being due to the "high price controversy." Earlier, before the Lunar New Year, The Born Korea sold the Baek Ham gift set at a 45% discount (28,500 KRW) from the regular price (51,900 KRW), but there were continuous criticisms that the regular price was set excessively high and then sold at a discount as a kind of "sales tactic."
Consumers especially targeted the pork content. Baek Ham's pork content is 85.4%, which is lower than Spam, the market leader in canned ham with 92.4%, yet the discounted price for a set of nine Baek Ham cans was higher than the lowest price for a set of nine Spam cans (around 21,000 KRW), drawing criticism. In the past, CEO Baek had stated that "the price of ham products is influenced by the pork content," which further fueled the controversy.
As the controversy continued, CEO Baek explained on his YouTube channel on the 26th of last month, "Because we are a latecomer, the production cost is high, so there is a big difference in cost." Regarding the pork content, he said, "The difference in meat content per 200g is about 14g, and in terms of meat cost, it is less than 100 KRW, so would we reduce the meat content just to save 100 KRW?" Additionally, CEO Baek offered explanations such as "It was made closer to budaejjigae (army stew), so more seasoning was added to cook it in the broth" and "It was created with the intention of helping farms by using less preferred parts of Korean pork (Handon)."
However, despite CEO Baek's explanations, the controversy did not subside, and on the 3rd, The Born Korea's stock price fell to the 20,000 KRW range for the first time since its listing last year. The industry reacted that the Baek Ham controversy raised public doubts about the "cost-effectiveness" that CEO Baek had emphasized, and a red light was turned on for The Born Korea, which had been expanding its business into processed foods. Nevertheless, despite the controversy, The Born Korea showed strong performance by increasing profits by more than 40% last year. The stock price has also recovered to the low 30,000 KRW range.
CEO Baek Jong-won’s explanation video regarding the price controversy of the 'Baekham Gift Set.' YouTube channel 'Baek Jong-won'
Meanwhile, The Born Korea drew a line, stating that it is not stopping the sale or production of Baek Ham due to the controversy. A representative of The Born Korea said, "Since the sold-out situation is ongoing, we temporarily excluded the product from the list to minimize consumer inconvenience," adding, "We are considering resuming sales soon."
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