Ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, the food and dining industry is focusing on K-heritage marketing that puts the traditional taste and style front and center. From mascot goods dressed in hanbok to desserts that reinterpret traditional snacks, and packaging inspired by bojagi for treating honored guests, companies are reshaping Lunar New Year consumption into a stage that sells "the most Korean experience," rather than driving only discount competition.
According to the food and dining industry on the 13th, coffee franchise HOLLYS released three types of "Hanbok Hollybear Keyrings," featuring the brand mascot "Hollybear" dressed in traditional hanbok for the Lunar New Year. With details of hanbok such as the saekdong jeogori, norigae, and gat, the products were designed to target not only domestic consumers but also souvenir demand from foreign tourists visiting Korea, according to reports.
Desserts that reinterpret traditional ingredients and snacks in a modern way have also been launched. Baskin-Robbins released "Ice Chapssal Hangwa," which uses glutinous rice cakes and grain crunch to reimagine the unique texture of hangwa as ice cream. Coffee franchise A TWOSOME PLACE collaborated with Taegukdang, known as the oldest bakery in Seoul, to present a set combining jeonbyeong and cookies. In addition, Domino's Pizza packaged its "Seol special pizza box" with a traditional bojagi image, wrapping pizzas like Lunar New Year gifts.
A dining industry official said, "There is a growing trend of using elements that can intuitively convey a Korean image in products, goods, and packaging," adding, "Rather than reproducing tradition as is, companies are targeting demand with an approach translated into the language of modern consumers."
This K-heritage competition in the food and dining industry ahead of Lunar New Year is seen as a strategy to imprint both brand identity and a Korean image, going beyond simple holiday-limited marketing. With consumption slowing due to high inflation and a slump in domestic demand, and with gift markets showing reduced purchase effects from price and discount competition alone, "meaningful consumption" has emerged as a new selection criterion.
The increase in tourists visiting Korea is also cited as a reason this strategy is gaining traction. According to the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), the number of foreign tourists visiting Korea in 2025 was 18.94 million, up 15.7% from 2024 (16.37 million). It is the highest annual figure in the past 10 years. In particular, with a sharp increase expected this year in the inflow of Chinese group tourists (youke) during the Chinese New Year holiday compared with the previous year, the industry largely views this as a result of homing in on foreign tourists' preference for Korean-themed goods and desserts before and after the Lunar New Year holiday.
A food industry official said, "These days, foreign tourists visiting Korea are already familiar with Korean culture through K-content. They also tend to view goods and food not as merely 'for viewing' culture, but as consumer items they can own and experience," adding, "In particular, the traditional elements of Korea embedded in Lunar New Year goods and products have become factors that determine purchases."
Lee Jong-woo, a professor in the Department of Business Administration at Ajou University, said, "Using traditional elements for the Lunar New Year has meaning in itself, but if the target segment and purpose are unclear, it can end up as a simple seasonal event," adding, "Because foreigners and Koreans prefer different traditional elements, it is time for strategic approaches and detailed design of goods and packaging to back them up."