At about 10 a.m. on the 12th in Seongsu-dong, Seongdong District, Seoul. After walking about five minutes along the main road from Exit 4 of Seongsu Station on Subway Line 2 and turning into an alley, a large CU convenience store with exterior glass decorated in a purple, translucent pastel tone came into view. On the window, the phrase "Dessert Blossom" was written in large letters, and posters featuring various CU dessert products were displayed.
One wall of the store was densely lined with four dedicated shelves for dessert products. Each shelf neatly displayed items including CU's flagship product "Yonsei Milk Cream Bread," the Dubai Dessert Series, fresh fruit sandwiches, and CU's PB (private brand) Bakehouse 405.
The CU Seongsu Dessert Park location, which opened that day, is a specialized store that puts desserts at its core. The store measures 120㎡ (about 36 pyeong), and it strengthened its dessert assortment by about 30% compared with regular convenience stores. Taking into account the area's large number of foreign tourists, the interior combines products, space, and experiential elements so customers can experience the latest Korean dessert trends in one place.
To introduce experiential elements, CU created a DIY (Do It Yourself) zone inside the store. This is a space where customers can make desserts to their liking. An oven-type air fryer, a whipped cream dispenser, and a variety of toppings are provided.
To mark the store opening, CU is also running the "My Own Cream Bread Challenge" event, in which customers who photograph cream bread they made themselves and verify it on Instagram will be entered into a drawing for prizes. A CU official said the effort aims to "move beyond a space where customers simply buy goods like existing convenience stores," adding that the goal is "especially to offer a different experience for foreign customers."
CU also introduced a "smoothie machine" and a "fresh fruit kiosk" in the store. For the smoothie machine, if you place a cup filled with frozen watermelon, mango banana, strawberry banana, and the like, it automatically blends it into a smoothie. The price is 3,000 won. CU said it installed smoothie machines at about 70 stores in Seoul and the capital area in June last year, and at some office-district stores, more than 650 cups were sold over four days, generating more than 2 million won in sales.
The fresh fruit kiosk is equipment CU has been rolling out sequentially to stores nationwide since the end of last year. It portions seven to eight in-season fruits into pieces and sells them in the 4,000–6,000 won range. A sealed refrigerator controls the temperature to improve freshness, and through a partnership with a specialist company, even fruits that are hard to prep, like grapefruit, are offered as cup fruit.
In recent years, CU has built competitiveness by quickly rolling out "buzzworthy desserts." Yonsei Milk Cream Bread, released in 2022 as the first of its kind at a convenience store, has come out in 34 varieties so far and is on track to top 100 million units in cumulative sales this year. Bakehouse 405, launched in Aug. 2023, has sold more than 27 million units in total. The Dubai Dessert Series also recently surpassed 10 million in cumulative sales.
In March last year, CU opened the first dessert popup in the convenience store industry at the Sweet Park in the Shinsegae Department Store Gangnam location, showcasing nine popular products. CU said that after confirming strong customer demand at the time, it led to the opening of this dessert-specialty store. Last year, CU's dessert sales rose 62.3% from a year earlier.
With Korea's convenience store market saturated, CU has rolled out specialized stores that put categories such as ramen, snacks, K-food, and beauty at the forefront in addition to desserts. It rearranges products and adds experiential elements tailored to the purpose of visits and the customer base of each commercial district.
A representative case is the ramen-specialty store "Ramen Library." In 2023, CU operated the Hongdae Imagination Store with a ramen library concept, arranging domestic and overseas ramen in large display shelves. Last year, it exclusively operated Ramen Library stores at seven docks of the Seoul waterborne public transit "Hangang Bus," expanding the experiential model to transportation hubs.
In 2024, it opened the "Snack & Ramen Library" at Terminal 2 of Incheon International Airport, unveiling a store that aggregates domestic and overseas snacks on a large scale. In Myeong-dong, it is also running a specialized convenience store aimed at foreign tourists by strengthening K-food products and providing conveniences such as guidance in four languages, foreign currency exchange, and a prepaid card kiosk.
Park Jeong-gwon, head of operations support at BGF Retail, said, "Through the CU Seongsu Dessert Park store, we will widely promote Korean desserts to foreigners," adding, "We also plan to increase exports of dessert product lines overseas going forward."