GS25 x Hanjeongseon chapssaltteok tops 700,000 units sold

Yoajeong, The Venti, Waffle University join the trend

Department stores compete to host pizza sulgidduk pop-ups

'Chewy texture meets ingredients young consumers love'

Hanjeongseon yogurt and pistachio chapssaltteok sold at GS25 convenience stores. [Provided by GS25]
Hanjeongseon yogurt and pistachio chapssaltteok sold at GS25 convenience stores. [Provided by GS25]

Korea's tteok craze shows no signs of slowing. Hot on the heels of the Dubai Chewy Cookie — a chewy tteok-inspired treat that sold out nationwide — fusion rice cake varieties such as yogurt chapssaltteok and pizza sulgidduk have emerged as the dessert trend of the moment, drawing in MZ generation consumers who love a chewy bite as well as foreign tourists hunting for the latest K-dessert.

Retailers, convenience store chains and franchise operators are racing to capitalize on the craze, launching collaborative products and hosting pop-up stores, according to industry sources Tuesday. Convenience store chain GS25 teamed up with Hanjeongseon, a specialty yogurt chapssaltteok shop, and debuted the "Hanjeongseon Yogurt Chapssaltteok" on Sept. 3. Within a month, cumulative sales surpassed 700,000 units, with a sell-through rate of 100 percent.

The buzz surrounding the product has been equally striking. Cumulative searches for the item on the Woori Dongne GS app reached about 6 million last month, making it the second most-searched term on the app — trailing only the hit "Minumsa Bread." It also topped all quick-commerce (delivery and pickup) sales last month, overtaking canned beer — an unusual feat. Riding that momentum, GS25 is preparing a follow-up, the "Hanjeongseon Pistachio Chapssaltteok," with pre-order sales of 20,000 limited units set to begin Wednesday.

Hanjeongseon is a dessert brand that built its reputation through word of mouth on SNS as the "chapssaltteok shop with a line" in Seongsu-dong, Seoul. At its Seongsu-dong flagship as well as branches near Seoul Station, the Lotte Department Store main store and The Hyundai Seoul — all popular with foreign tourists — waits of dozens of minutes are the norm. Customers must secure a queuing reservation through the restaurant reservation platform Catch Table before they can even join the line, and arriving late in the afternoon makes that impossible. Part of the GS25 collaboration's appeal was precisely that it let shoppers pick up the product at a nearby convenience store with far less hassle.

Franchise operators are also scrambling to ride the yogurt chapssaltteok wave. Yoajeong launched five varieties of its "Yoajeong Fresh Fruit Yogurt Chapssaltteok" at 250 locations on Sept. 19 and has been expanding the rollout — though quantities are capped per store, meaning items routinely sell out the moment a location opens. The Venti recently introduced Yogeobora, a Greek yogurt shop-in-shop brand, and began selling a yogurt chapssaltteok called "Yogeobora Mochi." Waffle specialist Waffle University has also entered the fray with a new product that sandwiches a chapssaltteok sheet, yogurt cream and fresh fruit between two waffles.

The Hanjeongseon store on the below-ground floor of the Lotte Department Store main branch in Jung-gu, Seoul. (Kang Seung-yeon)
The Hanjeongseon store on the below-ground floor of the Lotte Department Store main branch in Jung-gu, Seoul. (Kang Seung-yeon)

Pizza sulgidduk — a savory-sweet fusion rice cake topped with pizza-style ingredients — is driving what fans are calling a "tteok pilgrimage" trend. Demand is so fierce that shoppers queue before stores even open, spawning neologisms such as "tteok-open-run" and "tteok-keting," a portmanteau of tteok and ticketing. As more tteok shops add pizza sulgidduk to their menus, the craze is spreading across the country, drawing MZ generation customers into neighborhood rice cake shops that have traditionally catered to older clientele.

Department stores are actively courting pizza sulgidduk pop-ups. Lotte Department Store hosted one at Jamsil Lotte World Mall last month and is running another this month at the newly renovated food hall in its Gangnam branch. Shinsegae Department Store is holding a pizza sulgidduk pop-up throughout October at the Sweet Park section of its Gangnam branch. Yongsan iPark Mall, whose pizza sulgidduk pop-up proved so popular last month, plans to extend the event into this month as well.

Industry insiders attribute the sustained popularity of fusion tteok to the MZ generation's love of chewy textures. The combination of ingredients that younger consumers already favor — yogurt, fresh cream, fruit and pistachio — removes any sense of unfamiliarity. Prices ranging from roughly 1,000 to 6,000 won per piece also make the treats more accessible than many other food trends that have gone viral on SNS.

The industry expects the tteok market to keep growing. According to the Ministry of Statistics, sales of tteok products rose 70.6 percent — from 564.1 billion won ($415 million) in 2018 to 962.4 billion won in 2025.

"Tteok, once considered something young consumers had little interest in, is now a coveted item," one industry official said. "The chewy texture and its versatility with a wide range of ingredients are attracting not only the MZ generation but also foreign tourists eager to experience the dessert trends taking hold in Korea."

Customers wait to take part in a preview event for the "Hanjeongseon Yogurt Chapssaltteok" held at a GS25 store in Gangnam, Seoul, on Aug. 28. [Provided by GS25]
Customers wait to take part in a preview event for the "Hanjeongseon Yogurt Chapssaltteok" held at a GS25 store in Gangnam, Seoul, on Aug. 28. [Provided by GS25]

spa@heraldcorp.com