Samip Hopang sales rise 44% at convenience stores as cold weather sets in

Samip Hopang is riding strong sales momentum heading into the winter peak season. Samip said Thursday that convenience store sales of the steamed bun brand rose about 44% year on year in the first three weeks after this season's launch.

Sales across all channels during the same period climbed about 20%. The company attributed the gains to a combination of an advertising campaign, word of mouth on SNS, and stronger product competitiveness.

An ad campaign featuring actor Gong Myung as the brand's new face surpassed 2 million views within a week of its release. A post on the SNS platform Threads showing how to steam hopang properly spread to short-form platforms including Instagram Reels.

Samip has enhanced the flavor of existing varieties — including red bean, vegetable, pizza, sweet potato and kimchi — and applied a newly developed proprietary baking technology to give the buns a softer texture. New products arriving this month include a taco hopang inspired by Mexican tacos, a gamju tongpat hopang made with a sweet rice ferment tangzhong dough for a chewier bite, and a black sugar red bean hopang with Okinawan brown sugar flavor.

The brand also unveiled hopang-themed merchandise. On Tuesday, Samip launched a "Samip Hopang Goods Edition" on Naver's Super Kkeut Deal Live, bundling a 12-pack of Samip Hopang with one randomly included keyring. The keyrings are miniature replicas of the packaging of flagship varieties, including red bean, pizza, vegetable and kimchi mandu hopang.

"We will continue to expand consumer touchpoints through differentiated products and diverse marketing activities, and push harder to capture the winter market," a Samip official said.