For Schwan’s, a food manufacturer better known for its American fare like pizzas and cream pies, its next $1 billion brand could soon come from cuisine originating nearly 7,000 miles away.
The company’s fast-growing Korean food offering Bibigo was founded in 2010. Today, Bibigo sells everything from fried rice and barbeque sauce to crunchy chicken and frozen dumplings. It was added to Korean food conglomerate CJ Foods’ portfolio five years ago following its acquisition of Schwan’s, the owner of Red Baron pizza and Edwards pies.
Since the acquisition in 2019, Bibigo retail sales have jumped more than 1,100%, topping $500 million last year. The brand is carried in more than 60,000 major retail locations across the U.S., an increase of 270% during the same period. Sales growth initially came from expanding distribution, but more recently it has benefited from increased household penetration and greater repeat purchases among existing customers.
“We’re very excited and bullish about the future of the brand,” Federico Arreola, the vice president of marketing at Schwan’s Consumer Brands division, said in an interview. “We see Bibigo [joining Red Baron pizza] as our next billion-dollar brand.”
Bibigo’s sales jump coincides with a surge globally in the popularity of Korean cuisine since the early 2010s. In the U.S., 72% of consumers are aware of Korean food, an increase of 5% from 2022, according to Datassential information provided by Bibigo. It’s also more prevalent at restaurants, with Korean or Korean-inspired food found on 6.6% of menus last year, more than double a decade ago.
Despite Bibigo’s recent success, Arreola said there are opportunities to grow sales.
Consumers are hungry for Korean foods and other Asian cuisines due to their interest in trying new ethnic items and the ongoing popularity of K-pop music and travel shows about the country, he said. At the same time, Bibigo is available in only about 13% of U.S. households.
The brand’s portfolio spans multiple usage occasions, giving it more opportunities to tap into consumers’ needs. Crunchy chicken and sticky fried rice work for meals, mini wontons as a side, seaweed as a snack and kimchi as an ingredient. Expanding its reach in larger-sized frozen meals remains a potential growth opportunity.
”We continue to see those as attractive categories,” Arreola noted.
He said one of the biggest attributes for Bibigo is its innovation center in Seoul. The facility helps Bibigo develop the technology to make authentic flavors using fermentation or to recreate Korean foods at home, like fried chicken or sticky rice. It also allows Bibigo to watch flavors and food trends in restaurants and South Korean street food. Bibigo recently sold a kimchi rice bowl at Costco inspired by observations in the East Asian nation.
“It’s totally a game changer for us,” Arreola said. “Having that expertise locally, that we can then bring to the U.S. consumer, so it’s truly that authentic experience.”
