Thanks to growing demand for simple meals in line with the rising number of one-person households, South Korea’s cereal market has rebounded this year after steadily contracting since 2012.
According to a recent report from market researcher Nielsen Korea, the Korean cereal market that had shrank about 10 percent annually from 262.2 billion won ($220 million) in 2012 to 189.9 billion won in 2015 has expanded 7.7 percent to 154.7 billion won during the January-September period this year.
The market was especially hit hard in 2014 when the nation’s leading cereal maker Dongsuh Foods Corp. had been accused of selling cereals contaminated with colon bacillus by the prosecution. The case was later acquitted by the court, but it was too late for the company to recover its tarnished reputation and win back customers’ trust. The declining milk consumption has been another factor behind the shrinking cereal market.
The market, however, started to show a sign of recovering entering this year, buoyed by the increasing number of single-person households in the country that has fueled the nation’s overall simple and ready-meal markets to rapidly growing over the recent years.
Children and adolescents used to be the main target customers in the market, but demand for adult cereals has been steadily rising, with granola cereals becoming the most popular product. “Kids’ cereals still account for 70 percent of the Korean cereal market, but the share of adult cereals is gradually increasing,” said an unnamed official from Dongsuh Foods.
By Lee Sae-bom
[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]