SEOUL, Oct. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — With rising demand for Korean food among foreigners following the success of Netflix’s original Korean series “Squid Game”, retailers are scrambling to take action.
Major online shopping mall Auction reported that between September 17 and 27, sales of marble kits (277 percent), dalgona kits (277 percent) and ttakji game kits (7 percent) jumped significantly from the previous month.
Sales of masks worn by Squid Game facilitators and training uniforms worn by game participants rose by 350 percent and 130 percent, respectively.
Samyang Ramen, an instant noodle made by Samyang Foods Co., are taking the spotlight after making an appearance in the Netflix series.
The main character in the series is seen crumbling Samyang Ramen into smaller pieces, dipping them into a noodle soup powder and eating them like a snacks with soju, a Korean distilled beverage.
“Dalgona bbobggi”, one of the survival games introduced on “Squid Game”, is gaining popularity overseas. eBay is selling dalgona kits for US$24.
Indonesian online news portal Detikcom reported that a video of a plastic ladle melting during the process of making a dalgona has exceeded 1 million views.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)