Consumer Demand for Home-Cooked U.S. Steak Growing in Korea
The lingering effects of COVID restrictions on Korea’s foodservice sector has fueled rising interest among Korean consumers in cooking and enjoying high-quality red meat at home. Consumer demand is soaring and retail chains are looking to expand their meat cases.
One of Korea’s leading hypermart chains – Homeplus – is taking it a step further by working to position its meat departments as year-round “steak specialty stores.”
“Homeplus is transforming its meat display sections,” says Junil Park, USMEF Korea director. In prior years, U.S. beef steaks were promoted only during year-end holidays but Homeplus has begun featuring chilled U.S. steak cuts year-round.
“For this campaign, USMEF participated in and supported the development of special Steak House sections at 135 Homeplus outlets.”
In addition to point-of-sale materials funded by the Beef Checkoff Program and the Colorado Beef Council, USMEF utilized funding from Iowa Corn Promotion Board to produce short-form videos with a local chef about how to properly cook high-quality U.S. beef steak in a frying pan.
Special steak sections were developed to promote chilled U.S. beef steak in meat cases at 135 Homeplus stores in Korea
The videos ran continuously at the special steak sections. QR codes to access the clips were also included in ads for U.S. beef in Homeplus’s weekly ad leaflet. One video highlighted grain-fed beef attributes while the other eight video clips demonstrated cooking techniques for eight cuts, including alternative steak cuts such as top blade, chuck-eye roll and chuck flap tail.