Korean fast food on menu at W. Cup

Korean fast food on menu at W. Cup

Song Jung-a, Reuters, Chonju, South Korea

A small South Korean company sees the World Cup as an ideal marketing chance to realize its dream of taking on global fast food giants with a healthy rice-and-vegetable dish gaining popularity across Asia.

Bibimbap -- literally mixed rice, with seasonal vegetables and chili sauce -- was one of the top three dishes during the Chosun Dynasty, from 1392 to 1910, and it was often served to the Korean king.

Pop star Michael Jackson also enjoyed the salad-like dish while in South Korea for a concert a few years ago.

The economical, low-calorie dish is a staple with tourists and a safe bet for vegetarians among the hundreds of thousands of World Cup fans set to visit South Korea during the May 31 to June 30 soccer finals.

But the only drawback in turning the delicacy into a fast food is that, like other traditional Korean cuisine, it takes a long time to prepare.

"I see great potential in bibimbap as instant food," Hong Sung-yoon, president of Jeonju Bibimbap Co Ltd, said in an interview. "It would not be hard to globalize the food as it's already drawn quite a good reaction from the Japanese."

Hong, 53, who used to produce honey, invested about 5.0 billion won (US$4.02 million) to set up a small plant in Chonju, 230 km southwest of Seoul, in February 2001 and began to mass- produce bibimbap as instant food.

Chonju is one of South Korea's 10 venues for the World Cup and will host first-round matches involving Spain, Paraguay, Portugal and Poland.

Now some 60 workers produce almost 2,000 packs of ready-made bibimbap -- one pack contains several kinds of boiled vegetables, chili sauce and rice.

The packets allow customers to enjoy bibimbap at the speed and low price of a hamburger or instant noodles.

Hong's company supplies bibimbap to convenience stores all over the country and to state-run Korean National Railroad which sells it to passengers on trains.

Hong is now talking to Asiana Airlines Inc., Korea's second- largest carrier, to supply the food on its in-flight menu.

Hong says his company is not making money yet as it is still in the investment stage. But it supplied 10,000 packs of quick bibimbap to a Japanese food company last year and has exported small amounts of bibimbap to the United States and Germany.

"Last year's exports were negligible but we expect monthly exports of up to 200 million won this year," Hong said, predicting the company would reach the break-even point by the end of this year.

Hong said his company's main export market is Japan, where many kinds of Korean food including Kimchi (fermented vegetables) are quite popular.

Bibimbap with marinated beef, a combination of two Korean delicacies, is selling well in Japan, Hong says.

Hong is also eying the huge Chinese market, as the Chinese are showing strong interest in Korean culture these days.

"Bibimbap is being recognized in Asia as diet food as it contains a lot of fiber with few calories," says Kwon Dae-young, a researcher at Korea's Food Research Institute who developed instant bibimbap.

But Hong has a long way to go to catch up with such global fast food giants as McDonalds.

The main obstacle against expanding exports is the relatively high price of bibimbap which results from high labor costs. Bibimbap is sold at about 300 yen (US$2.40) in Japan.

"Only half of our production line is automated," Hong says. "The initial stage of production still requires manual work."

Kwon is studying how to make the whole production process automatic and thinks South Korea will be able to globalize instant bibimbap by 2008, when Beijing hosts the 2008 Summer Olympics.

"This coming World Cup will be a great opportunity for marketing the product," Kwon says.