CJ Group Chairman Lee Jay-hyun.

CJ Cheiljedang (CJCJ), which made massive investments in the United States with the acquisition of Swan’s Company, a leading U.S. food firm, is strengthening publicity activities to promote its brand Bibogo in Eastern United States.

CJCJ began to operate a pop-up restaurant at Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The restaurant, a kind of quick service restaurant, is planned to remain operational until February.

It sells food items such as Bibigo Mandu (dumpling), cone-shaped bibimbop, japchae (Korean stir-fried glass noodles), and cupbop (Korean bulgogi rice).

A view of the Bibigo pop-up restaurant opened at Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. (Photos: CJ Group)

Under a contract signed with Uber Eats Delivery, CJCJ food orders are delivered to the whole of Manhattan.

Bibigo food trucks are making the rounds at university campuses to make the brand known to American consumers, particularly those in their 20s. CJCJ has so far focused on spreading Korean cuisine culture in Western United States.

 With the latest opening of the pop0up restaurant at Rockfeller Center, CJCJ plans to ramp up activities to sell Bibigo items. The move may be construed as CJCJ’s bid to focus on not only Asian Americans but also the mainstay U.S. market.

Rockefeller Center, where CJCJ’s pop up restaurant has been opened, is a global landmark tourist spot in Manhattan.

 It is also a high-density location. Global food makers have been scrambling to open at the Rockefeller Center Building to publicize their brands such as Blue Bottle, Sweetgreen, and FuKu.

One of the goals of the project is to put Korean cuisine on the global menu. Another goal is to showcase Korean cuisine to buyers of large-scale distribution companies.

Executives in charge of marketing from Swan’s Company, acquired by CJCJ last March, will hold an event specifically for logistics buyers next month to give them an opportunity to taste Korean food.

The upcoming event will serve as an opportunity to publicize the brand Bibigo and “antenna shops” to expand its clientele base, a CJCJ official said.

CJCJ is forecast to rake in 1 trillion won in sales in the U.S. market on the back of hot-selling items such as Bibigo Mandu this year, a more than three-fold jump compared to three years ago.

If Swan’s Company, acquired by CJCJ, is counted, the Korean company is predicted to surpass 3 trillion won in sales in the American market.

CJ Group aims to be “World Best CJ,” a plan which calls for the company to have at least three CJCJ items among the global No. 1 by 2030. To this end, CJ has invested in the United States, the world’s biggest food market, in a continuous and massive fashion.

Starting with Annie Chun’s Inc., a U.S. food maker, acquired by CJ in 2005, the group, conduced a succession of M&As: taking over Omni Food Inc. in 2009, TMI in 2013, and Kahiki Foods in 2018. CJ built an R&D center in California in 2016 and acquired Swan’s Company this year, capping its scheme to build groundwork to make a raid into the whole of the United State.

With its acquisition of Swan’s Company completed, CJCJ plans to rise to Asia’s top company in the frozen food sector.

Three years ago, CJCJ began to sponsor the CJ Cup, the sole official PGA tour event in Korea, which was televised live to about 220 countries across the world. The company set up food booths to publicize Bibigo items to players and galleries.

The brand Bibigo plans to launch sweeping marketing blitzkrieg to strengthen its presence both in the Asian market, including Korean Americans, and the mainstay U.S. market, said Park Eun-sun, chief of the Food Brand Marketing Team at CJCJ.