Pedestrians walk past a Mom's Touch's pop-up store in Tokyo in this October 2023 file photo. Courtesy of Mom's Touch

A growing number of Korea's food and beverage franchises have chosen Japan as the testbed for their overseas expansion, instead of China or North America, which had once been considered more favorable to foreign brands, according to industry officials, Monday.

Their decisions have been attributed mainly to the rising popularity of the Korean lifestyle in Japan, which was once seen as a graveyard for global restaurant chains.

Mom's Touch, for example, will open its first store in Tokyo under its direct management this month, as the Korean chicken sandwich franchise's pop-up store in the Japanese capital attracted over 33,000 consumers within three weeks last October.

The new store will be located in a building in Tokyo's special ward of Shibuya, where McDonald's had run its store for the past 39 years.

In recent years, Mom's Touch closed its stores in Vietnam, Taiwan, the U.S., Singapore and the Philippines, after suffering snowballing losses there. Although it resumed its overseas expansion by opening stores in Thailand and Mongolia last year and in the U.S. in 2021, this is the first time for the company to open an overseas store under its direct management.

While running the Shibuya store, the Korean firm plans to look for a Japanese partner that will manage its franchised restaurants there.

"The Japanese hamburger market's size is 7 trillion won ($5.1 billion), and the country's dining culture has drawn global attention," a Mom's Touch official said. "We will introduce the excellence of Korean burgers in Japan and spur our expansion in foreign markets."

Hollys also said earlier this month that it will open its first overseas store inside Namba Marui Department Store in Osaka, after establishing its local subsidiary.

"We made the decision to introduce Korea's coffee culture to Japan, Asia's largest coffee consumer," said Lee Jong-hyun, the CEO of the 26-year-old coffee shop chain. "We will open more stores in major Japanese cities and enter other countries."

Blu Shaak prepares to open its first overseas store in Shibuya, as the Busan-based coffee shop chain signed a master franchise contract last May with Aerok, a Japanese importer and seller of Korean-style beverage products.

"Despite the popularity of Korean coffee and dessert culture among Japan's young consumers, few Korean coffee chains have entered the Japanese market," a Blu Shaak official said. "We chose Japan as the first foreign country to enter, as we saw potential demand for our products in Japan."

The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) emphasized that Korean franchises will be able to capitalize on the fourth Korean wave, which resulted from the global popularity of Korean content on streaming platforms.

"Except for spicy food, Japanese consumers are familiar with Korean food, as they have been exposed to Korean food through dramas, movies and YouTubers," a KOTRA official said. "In particular, Korean food and culture are still more popular with Japanese women than men."

Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corp. advised franchises to take advantage of the popularity of Korean games, including Lineage, and dramas, such as "Vincenzo," with Japanese men, in order to attract them as potential customers.