Fusion tteok filled with fruit, yogurt and pizza toppings takes off

Department store 'tteok pilgrimage' draws 20,000; convenience stores join in

Customers wait in line at a GS25 store in Gangnam, Seoul, for a preview event for the "Han Jeong-seon Yogurt Chapssal-tteok" on Aug. 28. [GS25]
Customers wait in line at a GS25 store in Gangnam, Seoul, for a preview event for the "Han Jeong-seon Yogurt Chapssal-tteok" on Aug. 28. [GS25]

A woman in her 50s, identified only as A, recently let out a sigh when her college-age son — studying for a university transfer exam — told her he had waited two hours in line at a department store to buy a gift for his girlfriend. What he came home with was tteok, a traditional Korean rice cake. "I was already surprised that kids these days eat tteok," she said, "but waiting in line for it — that I never would have imagined."

A tteok craze is sweeping the country. Stuffed with fruit and yogurt or topped with pizza ingredients, the once-traditional snack has reinvented itself as a dessert that people in their 20s and 30s will happily queue up for. As consumers seek out celebrated tteok shops, department stores are gathering regional favorites under one roof, and convenience stores are rushing out collaborative products built around the trend.

Lotte Department Store is running a pop-up called "National Tteok Pilgrimage 2" on the basement first floor of its Jamsil branch through Thursday. Eight brands from across the country are taking part: Yukgu Bangatsgan from Sokcho, Yeongdobariddeokbang from Busan, Baengnyeonhwapyeon and Daeheung Tteokjip from Seoul, Changwon Saengkwabang from Changwon, Morak Jeolmi from Daegu, and Bomnalenun from Yeosu.

The products on offer are "fusion tteok." Yeongdobariddeokbang's pizza-seolgi uses baekseolgi — a plain steamed rice cake — as a pizza-dough substitute. Daeheung Tteokjip is presenting a matcha-chocolate seolgi that blends green tea and chocolate into the rice cake.

When Lotte held the first National Tteok Pilgrimage last year, five brands participated and about 20,000 people visited. On average, roughly 100 customers were waiting in line each day of the event. According to Lotte, the pop-up set an all-time single-day sales record for the bakery and dessert category at the Jamsil main building.

Tteok has also become a hit product at convenience stores. The "Han Jeong-seon Yogurt Chapssal-tteok," launched by GS25 in early September, topped overall product sales for the month through its delivery and pickup service, overtaking canned beer. Cumulative sales since launch reached 700,000 units, and related searches on the Woori Dongne GS app hit about 6 million that same month.

GS25 is following up with a "Han Jeong-seon Pistachio Chapssal-tteok," for which it began taking advance reservations Wednesday, limited to 20,000 units. The frozen dessert — a chapssal-tteok filled with a cream made from ground roasted pistachios — goes on sale at physical stores Thursday.

Han Jeong-seon is a dessert brand based in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, that built its reputation through word of mouth on social media as "the chapssal-tteok shop with a line." At its Seongsu-dong flagship as well as branches near Seoul Station, Lotte Department Store's main store, and The Hyundai Seoul — all spots popular with foreign tourists — waits of several dozen minutes are the norm. Customers must first secure a spot through the restaurant reservation platform Catch Table before they can even join the queue, and arriving late in the afternoon makes even that impossible. Part of what drove the GS25 collaboration's popularity was the simple fact that shoppers could pick it up at a nearby convenience store without the ordeal.

Franchise brands are moving quickly to ride the yogurt chapssal-tteok wave. Yoajeong launched five varieties of its "Yoajeong Fresh Fruit Yogurt Chapssal-tteok" at 250 stores on Sept. 19 and has been expanding the rollout, though per-store quantities are limited and items routinely sell out the moment a location opens. The Venti has also entered the space, introducing Yogobora — a Greek yogurt shop-in-shop brand — and selling a yogurt chapssal-tteok called "Yogobora Mochi." Waffle University, a waffle specialty chain, has likewise released a new product that sandwiches a chapssal-tteok sheet, yogurt cream and fruit between two waffles.

CU launched its "Pizza Jeolpyeon" on Thursday. The product adapts the pizza-seolgi that has been popular at tteok shops for the convenience store format, swapping the base rice cake for jeolpyeon. An earlier product, the "Dubai Jjonddeuk Chapssal-tteok," has sold a cumulative total of about 2.8 million units since its launch in October last year.

The industry expects the tteok market to keep growing. According to the Ministry of Statistics, tteok sales totaled 564.1 billion won ($421 million) in 2018 and rose 70.6 percent to 962.4 billion won by 2025.

"Tteok, once thought to be something young consumers had turned their backs on, is becoming a prized commodity," an industry official said. "Its chewy texture and versatility with different ingredients are drawing not only the MZ generation but also foreign tourists eager to experience the desserts trending in Korea."


yjsung@heraldcorp.com