Have it your way, says kimchi-maker Daesang

An image promoting Daesang’s customized kimchi service, which launched on Monday. [DAESANG]

Daesang launched an online service for fresh, customized, home-delivered kimchi.

Daesang, maker of Jongga-brand kimchi, said Monday that customers will be able to get kimchi just the way they want it, delivered to their doors.

Customers can choose spiciness and fermentation levels, their preferred ingredients and choose what types of salted seafood or red pepper powders are used. They can choose any amount, even as little as 300 grams.

Daesang has been providing a level of kimchi customization for online orders, but of a basic sort, like choosing nappa cabbage versus radish. The new service offers many more types of kimchi and customization options.

A total of 10 types of kimchi are available.

The company said it launched the service in response to the rapid growth of ordering food online during the pandemic.

Sales of food ordered online last year were 43.4 trillion won ($39.5 billion), up 62.4 percent from 26.7 trillion won the year before, according to Statistics Korea.

The service will help “customers experience the optimal taste of kimchi,” said a spokesperson for the company.

Daesang’s service begins in the middle of a geopolitical battle over kimchi with China.

The fracas started when the Global Times, a Chinese propaganda newspaper, reported last year that China leads the kimchi industry. It reported that about 90 percent of kimchi imported by Korea comes from China.

Those assertions angered many Koreans, which resulted in an advertisement, “Korea’s Kimchi,” being run in The New York Times in January.

BY JIN MIN-JI [jin.minji@joongang.co.kr]