Single-Person Households Drive Growth of Single-Serving Groceries, Ready-to-Eat Meals

Convenience store “dosirak” (Image: Yonhap)

SEOUL, March 12 (Korea Bizwire) — Sales of fresh food products in small quantities and home meal replacements have grown substantially with single- and dual-person households emerging as primary consumers.

In the past two weeks, sales of GS Supermarket’s “single-serving vegetable” packets were 68.7 percent higher than in the two weeks directly following the date of their release, according to GS Retail on March 11. 

Single-serving vegetable packets are priced at 1,000 won or 1,500 won, and consist of one of sixteen different vegetables sold in amounts sufficient for one meal.

At about 2,000 GS25 convenience stores where single-serving vegetable packets were also sold, agricultural product sales registered from February 8 through March 9 were 32.3 percent higher than the same period last year.

Meanwhile, more seafood is being sold in ready-to-eat, home meal replacement form. GS Supermarket’s 2017 sales tally of seafood home meal replacements was double that of 2015.

Similarly, the percentage of the seafood category consisting of home meal replacements doubled from 2015 to 2017, going up from 5 percent to 10.4 percent. 

GS Retail explained that as the number of households with two persons or less has grown, the number of consumers looking to spend prudently by buying modest, suitable portions has increased. 

The changes in consumption patterns wrought by more individuals living alone have been previously documented by Statistics Korea, which noted that items popular with single-person households like “dosirak” – meaning lunch box and referring to single-serving meals commonly found in convenience stores – and workout equipment were key product categories in 2015.

In the past two weeks, sales of GS Supermarket’s “single-serving vegetable” packets were 68.7 percent higher than in the two weeks directly following the date of their release, according to GS Retail on March 11. (Image: Yonhap)

Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)