A vendor at CJ CheilJedang's Bibigo Market, a pop-up stall inside Korea House in Paris, serves customers, July 25. The company set up the temporary restaurant during the 2024 Paris Olympics to promote Bibigo and its food products. Courtesy of CJ CheilJedang

CJ CheilJedang, Daesang and Ottogi are expanding their manufacturing bases outside of Korea to strengthen supplies for local markets abroad and to maintain their export momentum, driven by the global popularity of K-food, the country's major food companies said on Friday.

Expansion by the producers of key export items like frozen and fresh food products, instant noodles, kimchi and snacks reflects their increasing attention to consumers outside of Korea, rather than the domestic market. Reduced domestic sales of instant noodles by the country's largest makers like Nongshim and Ottogi are signs that reliance on the domestic market restricts companies' sales.

CJ CheilJedang has begun building manufacturing plants in the United States and Hungary. According to the firm on Thursday, the new factory in Hungary will be in Dunavarsany near Budapest. With an investment of 100 billion won ($71 million), the company's new plant will cover 115,000 square meters, which is as large as 16 football fields put together. The Hungary factory is set to start operations in the second half of 2026.

The plant's initial products will be a frozen dumpling lineup under Bibigo, the company's signature frozen food brand, which has become popular worldwide. The products' target market is Europe.

European dumpling markets have shown annual growth of at least 30 percent, according to the company.

In the U.S. state of South Dakota, CJ's American subsidiary, Schwan's Company, has begun building another food plant over a site spanning 575,000 square meters. According to CJ, the plant is set to be the largest Asian food manufacturing plant in North America, and will be launched as a new Bibigo base covering the region. The factory, built with a 700 billion won investment, is scheduled for completion in 2027.

Bibigo dumplings' sales in the U.S. from January to September jumped by 33 percent from 2023, higher than double the average growth of the entire dumpling market in the country, according to CJ.

Prior to acquiring U.S. food firm Schwan's Company in 2019, CJ bought German frozen food maker Mainfrost in 2018. CJ completed building its Kizuna manufacturing plant in Vietnam in 2022 and in May this year launched subsidiaries in Hungary and France. It also recently secured a deal with an original equipment manufacturing firm in Australia, aiming to supply the local market.

Employees at Daesang's kimchi manufacturing plant in Los Angeles check the plant's kimchi products in this undated photo. Courtesy of Daesang

"Europe is our strategic market where our third-quarter sales jumped by 40 percent from 2023, while the U.S. is our core market where more than 80 percent of our entire overseas sales occur," a CJ official said. "Preemptively investing in our manufacturing capacity will further export our K-food."

Daesang, known for its fresh food, including kimchi and other ready-to-eat items, is currently building a manufacturing plant in Krakow, Poland, on a 6,600-square-meter site. The expansion follows increasing kimchi demand across European countries. The company in May 2023 jointly established a Polish subsidiary with local food company ChPN and infused 15 billion won into the plant scheduled for completion next year.

The plant will allow the company to manufacture 3,000 tons of kimchi to supply to Europe each year by 2030, Daesang said.

Daesang also launched a kimchi manufacturing plant in 2022, on a 10,000-square-meter site in the City of Industry near Los Angeles. With an investment of 20 billion won, the plant can produce 2,000 tons of kimchi each year.

"People across the world learned about kimchi's health benefits that strengthen one's immune system," a Daesang official said, explaining the reasons behind kimchi's popularity. "Studies found that people (who ate) kimchi or Germany's sauerkraut, both fermented cabbages, were less likely to die from COVID-19."

Ottogi, which registered the highest third-quarter sales in Korea among the top three instant noodle producers, recently bought land in La Mirada City in California to build a manufacturing plant. The plant will start operating as soon as it is licensed by the U.S. government.

The company last year established a U.S. subsidiary, Ottogi America, in California. It is currently going through a legal process to change its name to Otoki which it said was "easier to pronounce for non-Koreans." It also changed its decades-old logo by making it more modern.

"The renewal will make our identity clearer, especially overseas," an Ottogi official said. The company in August promoted its global business bureau to a separate division to pay more attention to its overseas markets.