Leading food & beverage companies by sales in South Korea 2023, by sales revenue

The number one leading food and beverage company in South Korea in 2022 was CJ CheilJedang Corporation, with a sales revenue of approximately 3.3 trillion South Korean won. CJ CheilJedang took the first place on the still growing South Korean food market as most other competitors, such as Lotte Chilsung Beverage Co., Ltd., also experienced an increase in sales revenue.

Company history

CJ CheilJedang was originally founded in August 1953 as “Cheil Jedang” as part of the South Korean conglomerate Samsung Group. It gained independence in the nineties and is now part of CJ Corporation. As CJ CheilJedang’s sales revenue keeps rising the company is expanding and the number of employees is increasing as well, amounting to over 16,600 employees in 2022. CJ CheilJedang is known for manufacturing some of South Koreas most famous food brands, like Bibigo and Beksul. Notable is also the company’s interest in the foreign market, as they opened Bibigo restaurants overseas and in 2018, acquired American food manufacturing company Kahiki Foods.

Food sector as core business

The CJ CheilJedang’s core businesses are food and related services, bio pharma, entertainment and media, and retail and logistics. Aside from the sales revenue of the food business division, which almost doubled over the past five years, some of the other businesses experienced even higher sales revenues in 2022. The retail and logistics, bio, and food sector were those with the highest operating profit among CJ CheilJedang’s businesses.