CU announced on the 1st that it will start promoting the sale of health functional foods in earnest from this month.
As consumer interest in health functional foods continues to grow, CU aims to rapidly secure its position in the relevant market by leveraging its strengths, including the largest number of domestic stores with over 18,600 locations, differentiated product offerings, and data-driven sales strategies.
Since the beginning of this year, CU has been conducting prior information and promotions for health functional food sales through product conventions targeted at franchisees. Although the official start of sales was initially scheduled for the first quarter of next year, the company decided to advance this timeline by about six months upon confirming a stronger-than-expected consumer response.
To this end, CU has started recruiting specialized stores for health functional foods nationwide since last month. Unlike general merchandise, health functional foods require each store to go through a certain process to obtain sales permission from local governments, making franchisee applications essential.
As a result, over 6,000 stores across the country expressed interest in introducing health functional foods within a week. This figure accounts for about 32% of all stores, and despite the considerable effort required to obtain approval, many franchisees are showing a strong willingness to engage in health functional food sales.
CU plans to complete obtaining approval and registration by mid-month for the stores that applied for specialization, and will continually introduce differentiated products that are exclusively sold by CU. Initially, CU is preparing to launch about 10 types of health functional food products by the end of this month.
The year-on-year sales growth rate for CU health foods has shown a significant increase recently, with 5.3% in 2021, 27.1% in 2022, and 18.6% in 2023, reaching 137.2% in 2024. This year (January to June), the market size has also increased by 85.0%, indicating continuous growth.