1 Trillion Won Company
South Korean food manufacturer CJ CheilJedang Corp. announced its plans to achieve 1 trillion won (US$855.43 million) in global sales of its Bibigo Mandu by 2020, with 70 percent of those sales coming from overseas. Mandu is the Korean word for dumpling.
At an Innovation Seminar held at the company’s Incheon Frozen Food Plant on January 20, Kang Sin-ho, head of the Food Business Unit at CJ CheilJedang, said, “The company poured in around 200 billion won (US$171.09 million) in South Korea, the United States and China over the past three years to enhance its brand value, research and development (R&D) and manufacturing capacity. Last year, the company made 330 billion won (US$282.29 million) of sales in the dumpling market at home and abroad with Bibigo Mandu, ranking first not only domestically but also in the US market.”
Based on such achievement, CJ CheilJedang plans to lead the “K-Mandu” fever with expansion of its overseas business.
By country, the company aims to post sales of 315 billion won (US$269.46 million) in South Korea, 280 billion won (US$239.52 million) in the U.S., 176.8 billion won (US$151.24 million) in China and 130 billion won (US$111.21 million) in Russia by 2020.
To this end, CJ CheilJedang will invest more than 200 billion won (US$171.09 million) to expand its overseas production bases from the U.S. and China to Russia, Germany and Vietnam.
The company recently acquired a Russian producer to tap into the European market in earnest, and it also produces its dumplings in a factory of Cau Tre, a Vietnamese frozen food manufacturer it acquired at the end of last year.
In addition, CJ CheilJedang has recently released Bibigo Mandu in Germany by making an investment in facilities of Mainfrost, a frozen food specialist for Bibigo Korean foods by means of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) system.
In the U.S., the company will build its third production vase in the eastern part and enter the business-to-business (B2B) market.