[Report] Parisians Cooking Pork Ribs... Korean Skincare Before Bed [K-Wave 3.0] ②

[New Year Feature] Checking the Global K-Wave Scene
Shopping at Kmart for Korean Ingredients
Processed Foods, Seasoned Vegetables, and Soups on Offer
Gimbap, Sandwiches, and Kimchi in High Demand
K-Beauty Gains Popularity on TikTok
Soaring

"I'm going over to my brother's house and planning to prepare pork ribs for dinner."

At the end of last year, at the well-known Korean supermarket "Kmart" located in the Opera district (Rue Sainte-Anne) of Paris, France, I met Maxim Carbon (27 years old). He filled his shopping basket with gochugaru labeled "100% Taeyangcho," pine mushrooms, radish, gochujang, and tempura flour. Carbon, who first encountered Korean cuisine during a year living in Sillim-dong, Seoul, couldn't forget the flavors even after returning to France, so he continued to seek out Korean restaurants in Paris. However, as most local Korean restaurants were run by Chinese owners, he found the taste lacking in authenticity. Eventually, he began making kimchi himself, frying chicken, and cooking various stews at home. Recently, he even made jokbal by following recipes on YouTube.

The combo lunchbox containing half-cut gimbap and fried chicken is one of the most popular ready meals at Kmart among locals in France. Soups include gamjatang and kimchi jjigae.

Carbon's parents' favorite food is Bibigo frozen dumplings by CJ CheilJedang. They always keep them stocked in the freezer. He explained, "Korean food is based on sauces like soy sauce, gochujang, and doenjang, so it's easy to cook. As we started making it at home more often, my family also became interested in Korean cuisine, and now we enjoy it together."

K-Food on the Parisian Dinner Table

Kmart is the place where you can most strongly feel the French enthusiasm for Korean food. As scenes of people eating Korean food are repeatedly featured in Korean dramas and content, more consumers are seeking to taste ready-made Korean dishes for themselves. In addition to processed foods like Buldak Bokkeum Myeon, the store offers a wide range of products such as triangle gimbap, gimbap, Korean-style sandwiches, chicken and sweet-and-spicy fried chicken, jangjorim, kimchi (green onion and napa cabbage), seasoned vegetable side dishes, and even hot soups.

Maxim Carbon's Shopping Basket. Ingredients for making spicy pork ribs are packed in the shopping basket. Photo by Minji Lee.

The top-selling items are gimbap, sandwiches, and kimchi. In particular, after the Netflix series "K-Pop Demon Hunters" gained global popularity, sales of gimbap have noticeably increased. Gimbap cut in half, rather than sliced into individual pieces, is now selling better. As a result, at the Champs-Elysees branch, which offers the widest variety of ready meals, sales of ready-to-eat foods have increased by about 60% compared to 2020. This has significantly contributed to the annual revenue increase, with annual sales in 2024 reaching 27.8 million euros, up about 28% (6 million euros) from 21.8 million euros in 2021. The main sources of revenue are Korean food products (34%) and ready meals (34%).

Kimchi and soups, which are ready-to-eat meals, are sold at Kmart Champs-?lys?es branch. They also sell 120g small-pack kimchi, with a monthly production volume reaching about 2,000 units. All of this quantity is consumed exclusively within their own stores.

An image of a consumer eating kimchi like a salad during lunchtime. French consumers generally perceive kimchi as a health food and enjoy it like a salad.

The newly introduced seasoned vegetable side dishes have also received a positive response. Kimchi and vegetable side dishes are not consumed as accompaniments to rice or soup, but rather as simple meals similar to salads. On this day, at a makeshift table in one corner of the store, a local customer was seen enjoying kimchi with chopsticks as if it were a salad. Yoo Jeonghee, a designer at Kmart, said, "Our ready meals are customized for local consumers. For kimchi and ready meals, we adjust the seasoning to be less intense, and we provide intuitive explanations to help consumers understand the products better."

France, the Gateway to Europe... K-Food and K-Beauty Become Everyday Staples

France is the gateway to the European continent. Global trends often spread from the United States to Paris, France, and then across Europe and the Middle East. Europe is still in the early stages of adopting K-brands. In the case of K-beauty, it emerged as a mainstream trend from December 2024. As Joseon Beauty Sun Cream by Goodai Global gained popularity in the United States and the United Kingdom, K-beauty content began to appear more frequently in the TikTok algorithms of French consumers. The spread through social media accelerated, and as more Millennials & Gen Z in France directly experienced K-beauty, demand surged rapidly. It was at this point that the prestigious Parisian department stores began hosting K-beauty pop-up stores to attract these brands.

The competitiveness of K-beauty lies in its high-function, high-efficacy products and reasonable pricing. Domestic cosmetics ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) companies such as Cosmax and Kolmar Korea have enhanced their R&D capabilities and quickly reflected consumer needs in their products. Among French consumers, basic skincare products from K-beauty brands are already considered to outperform pharmacy or luxury brands in terms of formulation and ingredient competitiveness. In fact, luxury brands are now following the trend for PDRN ingredients that K-beauty made popular. Last year, L'Oreal Group's cosmetics brand Lanc?me recognized the effectiveness and popularity of PDRN and launched basic skincare products containing PDRN extracted from roses.

Stable distribution has also played a role. The global beauty e-commerce platform Silicontwo established a logistics hub in Poland to target the European market, creating a supply system that minimizes inventory time differences. This structure enables rapid simultaneous supply to both department stores and online channels, reducing the overseas expansion burden that would be difficult for individual brands to bear. Silicontwo is currently considering opening additional offline stores in Paris and plans to expand into new markets such as the Middle East, where it already operates a logistics warehouse in Dubai.

Delphine Herve Toura, who has worked in the French beauty industry for 30 years, said, "In the past, K-beauty had brief moments of attention in France in 2015 and 2019, but it couldn't be sustained due to COVID-19. The current K-beauty, however, is perceived as professional skincare emphasizing functionality and ingredients, making it distinctly different from before."

Interior view of the Korean cosmetics exclusive store "MiiN" located on Montmartre Hill. Inside the store, the Korea skincare routine is organized into 10 steps and displayed on the shelves.

Shopping products that Natalie Prado took out from her bag and showed. On that day, the store offered a big discount on the K-beauty brand "Purito" products for Black Friday, selling them for 9 euros.

Songzio, System, and Wooyoungmi Gather in the Marais District... "Still Unfamiliar Names"

Exterior view of the system store.

Inside the store's fitting area, a customer is examining the clothes they are wearing. The store staff identified "pants" as the most popular item among local consumers. The distinctive precise fit of Korean brand pants, along with the relatively lower price compared to outerwear or knitwear, seems to be accepted as a reasonable choice.

While K-food and K-beauty are in the market expansion phase, K-fashion is still struggling to establish itself in its home market. In the Marais district of Paris, where K-fashion brand stores are clustered, there was a noticeable lack of foot traffic. A staff member at a local brand store said, "In this area, sales are usually split about half and half between locals and tourists, but recently, sales to locals have dropped sharply. With high inflation and an economic slowdown dampening consumer sentiment, and with the rise of online shopping, there aren't many people out and about even during Black Friday. As the winter season begins, tourist sales have also declined."

The Marais district is known as the heart of Parisian fashion. It is home to a variety of brands, from Uniqlo and local street brand Drole de Monsieur to global favorites like Comme des Garcons and Supreme. At the far right end of the Marais, leading Korean designer and high-end fashion brands such as Songzio, System, and Wooyoungmi have established their presence.

Exterior view of the Songzio store. On the left, Songzio menswear and ZZERO products are sold. On the right is the women's clothing store that opened in September last year.