K-food, fashion, beauty to up ante on global push in 2025

South Korean food, beauty and fashion companies, which have enjoyed robust demand for their products in overseas markets this year, will go bolder with their global expedition in the new year amid growing economic and political uncertainties at home. According to the food industry on Tuesday, CJ CheilJedang Corp., Korea’s largest food company, has set a goal to further accelerate the expansion of its global presence in 2025. Its global expedition began early to offset the limited growth potential in the Korean food market crowded by many local brands. The Korean food giant launched a global food brand called Bibigo in 2010 and took a big leap in the US market after acquiring US frozen food giant Schwan's Company in 2019. Sales from its overseas food business jumped to 5.38 trillion won ($3.7 billion) in 2023 from 3.15 trillion won in 2019. Over the same period, the share of its food sales abroad in its total sales rose to 48% from 39%.CJ CheilJedang plans to penetrate deeper into new markets – Europe, Southeast Asia and Oceania – in 2025 with more focus on Korean-style dumplings called mandu, dried seaweed called gim and chicken products. To meet their surging demand, the Korean food giant has diversified lineups with tailored products produced from local factories to cater to different taste buds of people from diverse cultures.NEW RAMEN FACTORIES TO ARRIVEKorea’s top two ramen, or ramyeon, producers, Nongshim Co. and Samyang Foods Co., also announced plans to build new plants to ramp up the output of their spicy instant noodle products to cope with the global ramen craze. In August, Nongshim said it would spend 191.8 billion won to build a new ramen manufacturing facility in Busan, Korea with an annual production capacity of 500 million ramen packs, all of which will be shipped to other countries.The addition will double the company’s total production of export-only ramen to 1 billion packs once the factory is up and running in the first half of 2026. The company plans to break ground on the plant early next year.In earlier December, its cross-town rival Samyang Foods also announced a plan to invest 201.4 billion won to set up a foreign entity in Singapore and build its first-ever overseas ramen factory in China with a plan to complete the factory’s construction by January 2027. The decision was made to meet the insatiable global appetite for its flagship export item Hot Chicken Flavor Ramen, also called buldak-bokkeum-myeon. KOREAN COSMETICS EYE A BIGGER SHARE IN THE US, EUROPE Korean cosmetics companies are also expected to strike while the iron is hot in 2025 after posting their record earnings for 2024. Cosmax Inc., Korea’s No. 1 cosmetics original design manufacturer (ODM), expects its sales for 2024 would exceed 2 trillion won for the first time. For 2025, the company forecasts 2.5 trillion won in sales. In November, AmorePacific Corp., Korea’s No. 1 cosmetics group, also vowed to rebalance its China-heavy global business to focus on the US and Europe while looking for new brand acquisitions. The company expects its annual sales to recover to the 4 trillion won level this year for the first time since 2022. CJ Olive Young Corp., Korea’s top beauty store chain, has also joined hands with new, small beauty brands to foray into Japan and the US next year. It already set up an entity in Japan this year and plans to bolster its private label product sales and online sales in the US. In August, it also opened the Olive Young Anseong Logistics Center in Gyeonggi Province to better deal with growing orders from abroad through the Olive Young Global Mall. FASHION TOWARD ASIAN MARKETS Korean fashion companies are seeking to accelerate their global expansion in Asian countries. Matin Kim has opened shops in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao this year. It plans to open a store in Tokyo in the first half of 2025 and add an additional 27 stores abroad in the next five years. Korean activewear brands Andar and Xexymix also plan to advance into China, Japan, Southeast Asia and Australia. Korea’s leading fashion platform Musinsa will team up with its Japanese counterpart ZOZOTOWN to introduce small, independent Korean fashion brands to more Japanese consumers in the new year. Korean food, cosmetics and fashion companies are expected to continue to ride the Korean wave boom in 2025 thanks to solid demand for Korean pop music and content. The weakening Korean currency against the US dollar could also make Korean products more attractive to foreign consumers. But they are also advised to prepare measures to tackle potential tariff issues as the US President-elect Donald Trump, favoring high tariffs on all imports to the world’s largest consumer market, will return to the Oval Office in January. By Hyung-Joo Ohohj@hankyung.comSookyung Seo edited this article.