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With lunch costs climbing, consumers are turning to cafes and convenience stores instead of restaurants. A fried rice dish priced in the 4,000-won range at a coffee chain sold 400,000 units in three months, while convenience store ready-made meal sales posted double-digit growth.
Mega MGC Coffee's 4,400-won "MGC Whole Sausage Kimchi Fried Rice" reached cumulative sales of 400,000 units about three months after launch, according to the retail and dining industries on the 18th. The chain's "MGC Seasoned Cup Chicken" has surpassed 700,000 units in cumulative sales. Both items spread by word of mouth among students and office workers as cheap ways to cover a meal.
Other coffee chains are also expanding their meal offerings. Ediya Coffee sells kimchi fried rice and tteokbokki, while The Venti launched a fast-food sub-brand, The Venti's Kitchen, offering rose and mala tteokbokki and beef rice balls. A cup tteokbokki that Compose Coffee released early this year sold more than 140,000 units in two weeks.
Starbucks is also seeing more customers looking for meal substitutes. The chain's sandwich sales rose about 10% in January through September from a year earlier.
For cafes, the appeal is selling meals to customers who came in for coffee, lifting revenue. For consumers, handling a meal and a drink in one place instead of stopping at both a restaurant and a cafe saves time and money.
A similar pattern is emerging at convenience stores. At GS25, operated by GS Retail (007070), sales of ready-made meals such as boxed lunches, gimbap, triangle gimbap and sandwiches rose 23.9% in January through September from a year earlier. CU's ready-made meal sales climbed 13.1% over the same period.
At 7-Eleven, triangle gimbap sales rose 27%, with sandwich and boxed lunch sales up 23% and 22%, respectively. Emart24 also posted a 13% increase in ready-made meal sales.
As consumers hunt for cheaper meals, price increases are continuing in the dining industry. Domino's Pizza and Baskin-Robbins raised prices on some products starting on the 17th. Both companies cited rising costs of various kinds as the reason for the adjustments.
Domino's Pizza raised pizza prices by an average of 4.4%. Large pizzas went up 1,500 won and medium pizzas 1,000 won.
Baskin-Robbins raised prices on 46 items by an average of 5.9%, including 16 ice cream products and 30 beverages and other items. The single regular price rose 400 won, or 10.3%, to 4,300 won from 3,900 won. The quarter size went up 1,400 won, or 7.6%, to 19,900 won from 18,500 won. The Cafe 31 americano also rose 200 won, or 3.8%, to 5,500 won from 5,300 won.
Statistics confirm the upward trend in dining prices. Dining-out prices rose 2.5% last month from a year earlier, according to consumer price data from Statistics Korea. Processed food price growth also came in at 2.1%, a wider gain than the 1.5% recorded in August.
Household spending has risen as well. In the second-quarter household trends survey, monthly average spending per household on food and lodging was 473,000 won, up 3.5% from the same period a year earlier. Within that, spending on meals including dining out rose 3.9%.
