Expanding to Over 50 Items...
Up 60% Compared to Last Year
On April 22, Lotte Mart and Lotte Super announced that they are responding to climate change and providing consumers with a "fail-proof fresh grocery shopping" experience through smart farms.
Smart farming is an agricultural method that applies information and communication technology (ICT) to agriculture to optimally manage the growth environment of crops. It maximizes production efficiency by optimizing various variables necessary for crop growth, such as temperature, humidity, light intensity, and carbon dioxide levels.
Last year, Lotte Mart and Lotte Super offered around 30 types of smart farm produce, an increase of more than 40% compared to the previous year. The number of customers seeking smart farm produce has also been steadily increasing. Since 2021, sales of smart farm produce at Lotte Mart have recorded double-digit annual growth rates, with approximately 15% growth last year. In response, Lotte Mart and Lotte Super plan to introduce a total of about 50 types of smart farm produce this year and more than double the volume compared to last year.
The fruit for which Lotte Mart and Lotte Super have most aggressively expanded smart farm offerings is strawberries. Compared to the previous season, they have more than doubled the supply. This is to compensate for the fact that strawberries, which are highly perishable, tend to have softer flesh as temperatures rise. Smart farm strawberries, known for their consistent quality from winter through spring, saw sales from November 1 last year to April 20 this year increase about threefold year-on-year, driving a roughly 20% rise in overall strawberry sales during the same period.
Lotte Mart and Lotte Super are also expanding the supply of smart farm products in the "living root vegetables" category, which includes European vegetables sensitive to temperature. This year, they plan to offer a variety of root-harvested herb vegetables as smart farm products, including lettuce, coriander, basil, and arugula. The supply of smart farm cherry tomatoes will also be expanded to account for about half of the total volume.
Jung Hyeyeon, Head of Fresh Food Division 1 at Lotte Mart and Lotte Super, said, "Smart farm produce is one of the products that best aligns with our customer value of providing 'fail-proof fresh food' to our customers. We will proactively introduce not only smart farm produce but also agricultural products grown using various future farming methods, so that the perception of 'freshness equals Lotte' can spread among our customers."
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