Food industry cooks up collaborations with 'Culinary Class Wars' stars

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Food industry cooks up collaborations with 'Culinary Class Wars' stars

Published: 13 Oct. 2024, 16:08

CHO YONG-JUN
cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr

Kurly announced Friday that it will release salmon steak and chuck tail flap steak meal kits in collaboration with chef Choi Hyun-seok’s Italian fine dining restaurant Choi Dot and Yun Seoul’s warm noodle meal kit. Yun Seoul is a one Michelin-star restaurant run by chef Kim Do-yun. The meal kits will be sold exclusively on Market Kurly. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

The domestic food and e-commerce industries are capitalizing on the fame of star chefs from Netflix's cooking survival show "Culinary Class Wars" — quickly launching exclusive meal kits and opening pop-up stores that are selling out rapidly due to high demand.

The final episode for the show was released on Oct. 8, but its collaboration with the food industry has just begun: Market Kurly is releasing new meal kits in collaboration with chefs’ restaurants while Daesang opened the Yanggu Five Senses Village pop-up store in Seongdong District, eastern Seoul, in collaboration with chefs Song Haseulram and Kang Min-goo.

Kurly, the operator of food-focused e-commerce platform Market Kurly, announced Friday that it will release salmon steak and chuck tail flap steak meal kits in collaboration with chef Choi Hyun-seok’s Italian fine dining restaurant Choi Dot and Yun Seoul’s warm noodle meal kit. Yun Seoul is a one Michelin-star restaurant run by chef Kim Do-yun. The meal kits will be sold exclusively on Market Kurly.

Kurly has been selling meal kits made in collaboration with Choi Dot, including truffle cream gnocchi, scallop basil pesto pasta and basil cream risotto. Sales of the 17 collaborations have increased by 33 percent in the second half of September compared to the first half, according to the e-commerce platform.

Yun Seoul’s meal kits experienced a 72 percent increase in sales in the same period. All three Yun Seoul-branded noodle meal kits and many Choi Dot branded meal kits are sold out on Kurly’s website as of Sunday.

Daesang’s Yanggu Five Senses Village pop-up store, currently open until Oct. 20, in Seongdong District, eastern Seoul [DAESANG]

Daesang’s Yanggu Five Senses Village pop-up store, currently open until Oct. 20, is in Mamalee Market, a banchan (side dish) store and pub run by Chef Song. The three-story pop-up is decorated to resemble key attractions of Yanggu, Gangwon, and is designed to advertise the food culture the county.

The pop-up store’s restaurant will serve punchbowl dried radish leaf bread named after a basin in Yanggu, alongside tteokgalbi (grilled beef patties) and ssambap (leaf wraps), made from locally sourced ingredients.

Convenience store chain CU’s Marron & Tiramisu dessert, created in collaboration with Chef Napoli Matfia, is setting records even before hitting the shelves. Preorders for the tiramisu, which began on Oct. 8, saw the 20,000 prepared units sell out in under 20 minutes, making it the highest-selling product in the shortest amount of time in CU’s mobile app history.