Amid rising costs of food and basic necessities in South Korea, the popularity of “1,000 won coffee” -- instant brewed coffee directly from coffee machines inside convenience stores -- has been growing, according to the retail industry.
7-Eleven’s Seven Cafe instant brewed coffee (7-Eleven)
According to convenience store chain 7-Eleven, the first mover in introducing instant brewed coffee to the industry in 2015, approximately 45 million cups of Americano from its brewed coffee brand Seven Cafe were sold in 2017. A cup of Seven Cafe’s Americano sells for 1,000 won (93 cents).
Another convenience chain, GS25 meanwhile sold 64 million cups of instant brewed coffee last year, a sharp rise from 23 million the previous year.
“Among all items sold at 7-Eleven’s stores across the country, brewed coffee came in first in the last year, beating the traditional top-seller banana-flavored milk,” 7-Eleven official Lee Na-ra told The Korea Herald.
“We only use high quality coffee beans from Brazil, Columbia and Ethiopia which we roast separately at a factory we run exclusively for coffee for Seven Cafe,” she added.
Industry insiders said the cheap drinks are especially popular among office workers who tend to drink several cups of coffee a day.
“While I drink up to three, four cups of coffee a day, I prefer to get my coffee at convenience stores since the taste is similar but the price is about one-third compared to coffeehouse chains such as Starbucks,” said 33-year-old office worker Kim Dong-in.
CU, Korea’s largest convenience store by number of stores, said its instant brewed coffee sold under the Cafe GET brand at 1,200 won per cup sold more than 60 million cups last year, up from 45 million in 2016 and 25 million in 2015.
CU’s Cafe GET instant brewed coffee (CU)
CU has been using Swiss-made coffee machines from home appliance maker Jura that cost about 13 million won each.
The company said along with cheap brewed coffees, dessert products including bakery items have also seen increases in sales.
“Small cakes, such as cookies and cream cake, were newly ranked in the top 10 items of sales in the last month, following the popularity of brewed coffees. Cakes and cookies cost about 3,000 won, half the price of those sold at average bakeries, but the portion is about double,” said a CU official.
By Kim Da-sol (
ddd@heraldcorp.com)