1️⃣💳 Toss eyes the restaurant review market🍽️📍
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✔ Toss — Korea’s leading fintech super-app — has filed a trademark for “Spotlist,” signaling a potential move into offline restaurant ranking and review services
• The trademark covers three categories: downloadable review software, consumer response management apps, and location-based social networking services — though the exact scope remains undefined
• The move is backed by Toss’s growing offline payment infrastructure: its subsidiary Toss Place operates 210,000+ merchant terminals, and integration with its in-app platform “Apps-in-Toss” could unlock merchant promotion and acquisition opportunities
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🧑🏻💬 With 30M+ Toss app users, entering the restaurant review space could mean rapid data accumulation from day one. Could this shake up the Naver- and Kakao-dominated restaurant discovery landscape? 👀
🗞️ BizHankook | https://www.bizhankook.com/bk/article/31571
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✔ “Bomdong Bibimbap” — a simple rice dish topped with fresh spring cabbage (bomdong) — has gone viral on Korean social media, sparked by a resurfaced clip of TV personality Kang Ho-dong eating it on a variety show filmed 18 years ago
• Daesang Jongga launched a limited-edition “Bomdong Geotjeori (fresh kimchi-style spring cabbage)” that sold 20,000 units (≈22 tons) within two months; Sempio also ran a 1+1 promotion on its kimchi seasoning mix
• Demand has pushed wholesale prices for spring cabbage up 33%+ in just one month, with some recipe videos surpassing 3 million views
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🧑🏻💬 A viral dish from 18 years ago, a Y2K-era fashion revival, a 19-year-old Epik High track sampled into an award-winning hip-hop record — maybe the next big trend is already hiding somewhere 20 years in the past ✨
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3️⃣🛒Kurly posts its first-ever annual operating profit📦✨
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✔ Kurly — Korea’s premium fresh grocery delivery platform — recorded an operating profit of ₩13.1 billion in 2025, marking its first annual profit since founding, alongside record revenue of ₩2.37 trillion
• Core business stayed strong: Market Kurly’s transaction volume grew 11%, roughly 2× the national average for online shopping growth
• New verticals like Beauty Kurly and Kurly N-Mart (a collaboration with Naver), combined with logistics optimization (cost of goods ratio down 1.5%p), drove the turnaround — with paid membership Kurly Members surpassing 1.4 million subscribers
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🧑🏻💬 From same-day fresh delivery startup to actual profitability — it took a while, but staying laser-focused on fresh food as the core seems to have paid off. Could this be the e-commerce world’s case study for “slow but solid”? 📈
🗞️ Asia Times Korea | https://m.asiatime.co.kr/article/20260304500332
4️⃣🏆Lotte Wellfood wins double at Korea’s top processed meat awards🥩🌭
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✔ Lotte Wellfood took home two top prizes at the “2025 Best Processed Meat Product Competition” hosted by the Korea Meat Processing Association — with Essen Bbodeuk winning the grand prize in sausages and Uiseong Garlic Ham taking top honors in pressed ham
• Essen Bbodeuk earned the Minister of Agriculture award for its authentic German-style casing technique and an impressive 91.49% meat content
• Uiseong Garlic Ham is a regional co-branding product made with garlic from Uiseong County in North Gyeongsang Province — Lotte Wellfood has supported the region since 2010 through annual family camps and scholarship donations
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🧑🏻💬 These days, “meat content %” has become a real deciding factor when buying sausages — and 91% is practically just a block of meat 🍖 It’s also a good reminder that steady, regional brand-building over years quietly adds up to real credibility.
🗞️ Korea Economic Daily | https://n.news.naver.com/article/015/0005257377?sid=101
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5️⃣✈️K-Beauty & K-Food caught in the crossfire of the U.S.–Iran conflict🌍⚠️
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✔ U.S. and Israeli military operations against Iran have disrupted air and sea routes through the Middle East, creating logistical challenges for Korean beauty and food exporters
• Olive Young’s global shopping platform has notified customers of shipping delays to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and others; Samyang Foods is exploring alternative routes as the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked
• The timing is particularly painful — last year, Korean cosmetics exports to the UAE alone surged 67.2%, with the Middle East widely seen as K-Beauty and K-Food’s next major growth market
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🧑🏻💬 Just as the Middle East was shaping up to be the “next big market” for K-Beauty and K-Food, geopolitical risk hit hard 😓 A stark reminder that global export strategy and geopolitics are more connected than we’d like them to be.
🗞️ Seoul Economic Daily | https://m.sedaily.com/article/20014758
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