The History Behind Korea's Major Food Companies

Haitai (해태)

Haitai is the longest standing and most classic of all Korean food companies!

The company was established on October 3, 1945, not long after the end of the Pacific War. Famously, it was the first food company in Korea to be founded by domestic capital and skills.

Throughout its history, Haitai has been breaking a number of records.

Most classic Korean sweets were developed by Haitai. Out of its many products, Yeonyanggaeng (연양갱) has been around the longest , hitting the shelves the same year as the company was founded. The long-standing walnut jelly is still popular among all generations of Koreans (but many particularly among older generations!).

After Korea gained independence in 1945, the domestic market was flooded with cheap American sweets, and domestic companies initially struggled with the foreign competition. But Haitai kept developing new products and expanding their catalogue.

In the 50s, Haitai lost half of its workforce due to the Korean War, but it came back strong and would later experience its golden age during the rapid post-war development of the country.

In 1959, the company released Supermint, the first Korean chewing gum. And they kept breaking new records: in 1970, they started selling the first Korean ice cream cone, Bravo Cone, and in 1976 they became the first confectionary company to put on adds on TV.

In 1987, they started diversifying, investing in fields such as electronics, trade and heavy industry. But financial results took a hit as a result of the ventures, and they went bankrupt during the financial crisis in 1997.

Haitai takes its name from the mythical animal Haetae

Although bankrupt, the brand value was still there. Between 1999 and 2001, several groups offered investments, and they were eventually able to revive the brand.

In 2005, Crown consortium acquired the company. Even after the take-over, Haitai could continue its operations as a separate entity, keeping its catalogue of products as well as its well-recognized name.

Haitai reached another peak in 2014, when they released their Honey Butter Chip. It was an instant hit, leading to chronic shortages of the potato chips, and Crown’s market share jumped to a record 35%.

To this day, it holds the number one spot among confectionary companies in Korea.

Lotte (롯데)

Lotte is nowadays a global company, and it has never been purely Korean, starting its operations in Japan.

Because of its history, Lotte has been targeted by some Koreans during the Japan-South Korea trade dispute that started in 2019. Having migrated to the neighboring country during the war, Shin Kyuk-ho established Lotte Group in Japan in 1948. At the time, they only focused on food products.

After the normalization of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Japan in 1965, Shin Kyuk-ho returned to Korea to invest in Korean operations, and LOTTE Confectionery began its operations in the country in 1967.

After the end of the Korean War, Lotte grew by leaps and bounds, and later in the 80s established Lotte Holdings. Lotte expanded business to tourism, petrochemistry, banking, retail, entertainment, fast food, and became famous for companies and operations such as Lotte Department Store, Lotte Mart, Lotte Food, Lotte Cinema, Lotte Hotels & Resorts and Lotte World.

Although they were constantly developing new products, Lotte’s market share within the food field remained relatively small compared to other established brands. By building Lotte Marts throughout the country (needless to say, Lotte Marts will have plenty of Lotte products on the shelves), they managed to increase their sales.

In the 80s and 90s, Lotte continued their expansion, fueled by their growing domestic entertainment business as well as new overseas business.

In recent year, a nasty succession battle between the deceased founders’ two sons has damaged Lotte Group’s reputation.

The brand took a further hit during Park Geun-hye’s presidency, when a scandal involving bribes, tax-evasion and illegal trade was uncovered.

Samyang (삼양)

Samyang was established in September 1961, and the company grew under the protecting care of president Park Chung-hee.

The first product they released was Samyang Ramen. Initially priced at only 10 won, it gained a lot of attention, and it aimed to help solving post-war food shortage, as well as increase employments rates in the countryside.

Throughout its history, Samyang has not only produced ramen, it has also tried its luck in industries such as diary, oil, and medical centers.

Samyang steadily grew until a scandal shook the company in November 1989; Samyang Foods were exposed to have used industrial oil in its ramen. Their reputation took a heavy hit.

After investigations, the ramen was declared safe for human consumption, but by the time the verdict came out, their top spot as instant noodle manufacturer had already been usurped by Nongshim.

Another reason for their dethroning as the top ramen company was down to the fact that Samyang had not been able to keep up with Nongshim on the product development side.

Samyang was then surpassed in 2013 by Ottogi, and again in 2016 by Paldo, and it is currently in 4th place in instant noodle sales.

Samyang is currently looking to expand its overseas sales, strongly pushing their Hot Chicken Flavor Ramen (buldak-bokkeum-myeon). As a result of their efforts, they successfully broke into the Chinese market in 2014, and their sales have doubled in recent years.

Another scandal involving Samyang was exposed in 2012, when it came to light that ramen companies in South Korea had been colluding to fix prices for the past 10 years. Four major instant noodle makers were fined a total of 135.4 billion won (approx. 117M USD).

The biggest player in the market, Nongshim, was said to have led the collusion. Nongshim was also hit with the lion share of the fine, and almost their entire operating profit that year was lost.

Samyang was the only of the four companies to avoid any fines. Why? They were the one to tip off the collusion scheme!

In 2015, Nongshim succeeded in nullifying the fine imposed on them, and Samyang has since the debacle been seen as a traitor by rival noodle companies.

Nongshim (농심)

Last but not least, we will take a look at Nongshim.

Nongshim was established by the little brother of Lotte Group’s founder. Initially, they operated in different fields, but when Lotte released their own instant noodles, a rivalry unfolded between the two companies.

The ever popular Shin Ramyun, Ansungtangmyun and Beef Flavor Noodles all come from Nongshim. But this has become somewhat of a problem for Nongshim: these noodles were all developed in the 80s, and Nongshim has not been able to put new products on the market that can compete with their own classic noodles.

In the 80s, Nongshim temporarily enjoyed a 80% market share for instant noodles. In the 2010s, Samyang, Paldo, Ottogi and other companies slowly gained ground, and Nongshim’s market share fell to around 60%.

In 2017, their share further fell to under 50%, the worst figure in their history.

Nongshim’s products are sometimes said to be outdated, lacking in competitiveness, but there is more to it than that.

Nongshim’s public image has taken a hit by reports of insects found in their products, and traces of radiation has also been reported. After they tweaked its Shin Ramyun recipe, many people have said that the flavor is not as good as it used to be.

And there is also the collusion scandal that led to Nonshim being fined 107.7 billion won (approx. 92M USD) in 2012, resulting in operation profits of that year more or less vanishing.

Nongshim have tried many things to increase sales: TV commercials, price cuts and improved recipes. But the reception from consumers has been lukewarm, and many still say that the taste of their products is not what is used to be.

Not only have they reduced ingredients in their products in order to reduce price, tweaking and trying to improve the flavor has also been a conscious choice. But in the end, these changed have ended up hurting Nongshim.

This article has examined the history of some of the most famous Korean food companies. There are many other food makers: Ottogi, Paldo and Orion to mention a few. Do you have any favorite brand? What is your instant noodle of choice?

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