A rare items restaurant that can’t be sold because there isn’t … ’68 -year-old Gompyo ‘is enthusiastic about the MZ generation

“Do you have Gompyo beer?”

Nowadays, convenience store owners face requests to find Gompyo wheat beer several times a day. It became a “rare item” that even convenience store owners couldn’t see as the oncoming tribe customers were wiped out. This is because demand rose when actor Seo Ji-hye wandered three convenience stores for Gompyo beer on MBC’s entertainment show “I Live Alone” last month. Again, orders were recently suspended, making it difficult to predict replenishment times.

Gompyo beer is a product made using the Gompyo brand of Daehan Mill, a flour company. Daehan Mill’s Gompyo was born in 1952. The reason polar bears appeared in the logo was that polar bears, camels and hippos had gathered in the first zoo in Korea at that time and became popular. Based on a cute but strong polar bear, he drew a character as immaculate as wheat flour and created the “gompyo” brand using the popular “pyo” character at the time.

To dialogue with the new generation, Gompyo opened the “Gompyo Retro House” online flagship store in 2018 and the “Bakery House” the following year. Although it is online, it created a three-dimensional space by designing it in the form of a museum or a bakery, and through this platform goods with a retro sensibility began to appear.

Gompyo items include stationery and sundries such as notebook, notepad, eco-friendly bag, cosmetics such as pillow, cleansing package, cleansing foam, hand cream, sunscreen, clothing such as padding, man to man, hooded tea, backpack, T-shirt and popcorn, nachos, wheat beer. In addition to food, such as detergents, toothpaste, cell phones, and Bluetooth headset cases.

Gompyo is considered to be a successful case of branded products that are now trending. Goods played an important role in watching Gom-pyo being born, cooking with Gom-pyo, and connecting the children who grew up eating Gom-pyo as well as the children who started eating it.

Among them, gompyo padding, which was introduced in collaboration with men’s fashion company 4XR last year, was the hottest topic. The white padding with the big bear branding letters was a limited-sale product, but it became so popular that inquiries continued throughout the year.

Gompyo beer, which is not found in convenience stores, is a wheat beer that resembles flour, and is produced in collaboration with craft brewery Seven Bro and convenience store CU (CU). The first 100,000 units were sold out in three days immediately after launch and 300,000 units were sold within a week. Five months after its launch, more than 1 million units have been sold. Gompyo popcorn released a year ago also increased sales. CU released Gompyo Nachos as a third product in collaboration with Daehan Mill, but it’s still popular.

Indeed, Daehan Mill is a representative business-to-business (B2B) company. Since the flour is sold to businesses rather than consumers, there is no need to advertise the brand. However, the reason for the commercialization of Gom-pyo is that if the younger ones don’t know about Gom-pyo, it is possible that confectionery and baking companies may move away from Gom-pyo in the future.

Gompyo is a family brand for people over 4050 generations. On the other hand, the 2030 generation did not know the brand of Gompyo. In 2018, Mbrain, a market research firm, surveyed consumers between the ages of 20 and 39. Only 1 in 5 people answered “gompyo” to the element that comes to mind when it comes to flour.

Also, the retro fever that erupted from several years ago was an opportunity not to be missed for Daehan Mill. Gompyo is growing into a new company thanks to the freshness of the 1920s and 1930s and retro that evokes memories of the 1940s and beyond. A Daehan Mill official said, “Because CJ Group thinks culture over food, Daehan Mill also focuses on flour, but at the same time we will try to become a company that sells culture.”

Reporter Bae Jeong-won [email protected]