CU, a convenience store franchise from South Korea, successfully launched its traditional Korean, Japanese, and Italian noodle dishes in Mongolia, leading to over 200,000 units sold in three months.
CU announced on Apr. 16 that their noodle dishes, including Jajangmyeon (a Korean-style black bean noodle), have become popular in Mongolia.
CU has focused on maintaining the original flavors of Korean, Japanese, and Italian dishes such as Jajangmyeon, Japanese ramen, and pasta instead of adapting them to local tastes. They noted that the local food culture in Mongolia is not as diverse as in South Korea.
As a result, in just three months after the launch, sales of these noodle dishes exceeded 200,000 units, with Jajangmyeon selling over 80,000 units, ramen approximately 65,000 units, and carbonara pasta around 50,000 units.
According to CU, the three products were so popular that Mongolian stores sold out of their orders within the first week of launch.
In addition, searches for these three noodle products surged on Mongolia’s local commerce app, PocketCU, making Jajangmyeon, ramen, and pasta the top three searched items for the entire first month after their launch. The popularity was also boosted by the convenience of the dishes, which only require pouring sauce over the noodles and heating them up in a microwave.
Furthermore, CU has introduced a popular product called hot bars (fish cake bar) in Mongolia. It’s the first time that such products have been available in the Mongolian convenience store industry.
The test sale of hot bars in Mongolian stores started in Apr. 2023, and CU began regular operations in June fueled by a positive response from customers. By March of this year, over 180,000 hot bars had been sold in Mongolia. The product quickly became popular and entered the top ten sales categories within just one month of its launch.
