Allgot CEO Lee Ho-jin speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at his office in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Provinvce, Monday. Courtesy of Allgot

Allgot's frozen vegan gimbap sold in the United States / Courtesy of Allgot

GUMI, North Gyeongsang Province — Allgot, a food company headquartered in the country's heartland northwest of Daegu, is currently expanding its production lines to meet the soaring demand for its frozen gimbap in domestic and overseas markets. Most of the orders are coming from a major grocery store chain in the United States which has over 560 locations across the country (which Allgot's CEO declined to identify). French superstore chain Carrefour's Chinese office has also ordered the products and so have local retailers in Korea.

But because of its insufficient production capacity, Allgot isn't accepting any orders from China. Two production lines are making gimbap to meet demand in the U.S. as well as local Korean superstore chain E-mart and its Emart24 convenience store subsidiary. Korea's biggest online shopping platform Coupang and major warehouse store chain Lotte Mart Maxx have also begun selling Allgot's gimbap and other frozen products including bibimbap and fish cake soup.

"We are currently in talks with Costco to launch our products in the U.S. and we have already completed another deal with Carrefour China," said Lee Ho-jin, CEO of Allgot. "There are larger superstore chains in the U.S. than the one we are now exporting to, such as Walmart. It is my ambition to expand our export channels to those firms as well. If those distribution channels become reality, we would need a much bigger factory than now."

Allgot's skyrocketing exports all started in April 2022 when the company launched its frozen gimbap brand, Baba Gimbap. Two months later, Lee introduced the brand at a food business exhibition in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, and signed a supply deal with an American buyer. The first shipment to the U.S., 250 tons of fried tofu burdock vegan gimbap, was made in May and reached American shelves three month later. It was the biggest volume the company ever exported. Before that, the company exported 2,000 to 5,000 individual gimbap items to the Netherlands, Vietnam and Hong Kong.

Allgot hit the jackpot in the U.S. after an ethnic Korean resident of America introduced the company's vegan gimbap on TikTok in August. The content went viral garnering over 11 million views in three weeks and the sudden gimbap craze among Americans was covered by U.S. TV network NBC.

Allgot factory workers handle gimbap at an auto-slicer. The gimbap is snap frozen at minus 45 degrees Celsius to ensure freshness of the ingredients. Courtesy of Allgot

"We started seeing our products in the U.S. selling really fast," Lee said. "Right now, we can make up to 40,000 gimbap rolls every day. But demand is now forcing us to make enough volume for a daily container shipment of 53,000 units. Because of our capacity shortfall, we cannot deliver to some of our local Korean buyers."

The company's now-famous gimbap cannot be made in an entirely automated process. It requires human labor to insert the cooked ingredients while machines do the rest, putting steamed rice on a sheet of dried seaweed, rolling it with the filling inside and cutting it into nine equally sized pieces before packaging. Each production line requires about 10 workers. The lines will be expanded to over 20 in additional factories by the first half of the next year, according to Lee.

Exporting frozen foods can be tricky. The U.S., currently Allgot's largest importing country, bans meat imports. That prevents the company from exporting any gimbap containing meat. Lee ran with a vegan gimbap to target the U.S. market. Ingredients must be selected to ensure they retain quality after defrosting. Lee decided to pass on fried eggs, one popular gimbap ingredient, in all its products after learning that eggs can give off an unpleasant smell when being microwaved.

His affection for authentic Korean food sometimes becomes a hurdle.

"The Chinese buyer wants mala-flavored gimbap," he said, referring to a spicy seasoning made from Sichuan peppercorn and chilli. "But I, personally, am not fond of the idea because it distorts gimbap's traditional recipes."

Local Koreans who have come to know Allgot from news headlines now want in on the frozen gimbap product.

Allgot recorded less than 200 million won ($151,000) in sales per month before August. Now, it is raking in over 10 billion won monthly. "Ninety percent of sales come from the U.S., right now," Lee said. "And by the end of this year, I expect the monthly sales to jump to 12 billion won."