As restaurant prices rise, "lunchflation" (a portmanteau of lunch and inflation) is intensifying, changing office workers' spending patterns. As demand for packed lunches grows, the food industry is moving to expand its side-dish HMR (home meal replacement) businesses.
According to the Ministry of Data and Statistics (MODS) on the 13th, the consumer price index for the institutional sector of eating out stood at 127.28 in March, up 2.8% from a year earlier. This index takes eating-out prices in the base year of 2020 as 100; a higher figure means a greater burden on consumers. As a result, there is a clear shift toward value-for-money spending such as convenience store lunch boxes, salads, and HMR. With frugality combining with a culture of self-care, including health, packing one's own lunch is spreading as a new lifestyle.
Keeping pace with this trend, the food industry is strengthening its side-dish HMR businesses. Dongwon F&B fully revamped its HMR-focused online mall The Banchan & to target the side-dish market. It is diversifying its HMR menu lab into three categories and developing new recipes. Previously, The Banchan & products were produced at Dongwon's Gasan plant, but as HMR menus diversified, the company halted in-house production and shifted to an external consignment model, entrusting production to firms specialized in small-lot, multi-item manufacturing. Dongwon is also expanding its Korean HMR lineup centered on the Yangban brand. The existing lineup focused on gim and juk is being broadened to soups, stews, and instant rice, with plans to grow it into a Korean convenient meal brand. According to Dongwon F&B, Yangban's sales last year rose about 20% from a year earlier.
OTOKI surpassed 100 billion won in cumulative sales in 2024 after launching its premium HMR brand Oz Kitchen in 2019. Oz Kitchen has expanded its portfolio beyond side dishes to include refrigerated soups and frozen rice balls, fried rice, and chicken. It currently has a total of 10 categories and 56 products.
Pulmuone, through its Banddeuthansik brand, has secured a diverse side-dish HMR lineup, including namul side dishes as well as meatballs, tteokgalbi, and donggeurangttaeng. While Banddeuthansik had focused on soups and stews, it recently expanded its side-dish lineup and now sells cooking sauces, pickled side dishes, and even frozen side dishes. The plan is to solidify its image as a premium Korean convenient meal brand. Recently, side-dish HMR products have been selling not only through each company's own mall but also through offline channels.
A food industry official said, "As the perception spreads that lunch has become expensive, a lunch-box culture is spreading among office workers, and demand for side-dish HMR to save time is also increasing," adding, "With steady demand growth expected, the overall industry is working to diversify lineups from basic side dishes to unique ones and actively market them."
In the food industry, there is speculation that the trend could evolve in a direction similar to Japan's lunch culture. In Japan, a lunch-box-centered food culture is established, and the side-dish convenience food market is developed. Along with a decline in eating out, it continues to show steady growth. In Korea as well, the increase in single-person households, the burden of eating-out costs, and delivery fatigue are acting in combination, making it likely that the shift from eating out to lunch boxes and convenient meals will accelerate.
Professor Lee Eun-hee of Inha University's Department of Consumer Science said, "Once prices go up, they don't come down easily. The burden of eating-out prices on office workers is growing," adding, "Lunch boxes using side-dish HMR are one way to ease the burden of eating-out prices. It is positive that the food industry is expanding side-dish lineups at reasonable prices."