McDonald’s, Orion get in on honey butter fad

Joining in the sweetened potato trend started Korean confectionery manufacturer by Haitai-Calbee’s Honey Butter Chips, McDonald’s launched new French fries flavored with honey and butter.

Its Korea branch will sell a limited number of the new menu item per day from Friday through March 8. The new fries are sweeter than regular McDonald’s fries. A medium-size pack will cost 2,000 won ($1.8) and large will cost 2,300 won.

The hamburger chain also said it will introduce another honey butter-influenced French fry product later. Information about it has not been disclosed yet.

Orion, another snack maker, also announced it would start selling new chips flavored with honey and milk. It added the sweet flavoring to its steady-selling potato snack Oh! Gamja and named the new product Oh! Gamja Honey Milk.

“We have been closely watching the new trend of people preferring sweet chips since last summer,” the company said in a statement.

Korean consumers have been favoring sweet-flavored snacks as of late. Honey Butter Chips became a sensation in the local market as its popularity surged late last year as word spread through various SNS channels, making demand soar past supply.

The 60-gram (2-ounce) potato chip bag was even selling at higher than its retail price of 1,500 won on some websites as the product ran out quickly at offline stores last year. As of November, Haitai had brought in 10.3 billion won in sales by selling 8.5 million bags of Honey Butter Chips.

To catch up with the craze, other confectionery makers are now adding honey butter flavoring to their products.

BY SONG SU-HYUN [ssh@joongang.co.kr]