At a convenience store, a customer places a cup on a machine and frozen fruit begins to blend. About a minute later, a smoothie resembling a cafe order is ready. Instant smoothies, which took off in South Korea's convenience store beverage market this summer, are gaining ground fast, prompting operators to expand their product lineups and the number of stores that carry them.
Seven-Eleven's instant smoothie, launched in March, topped 700,000 cumulative cups sold in about five months, according to the industry. CU, GS25 and emart24 have also been steadily adding stores and product varieties, positioning instant smoothies as a new growth item.
Up to 300 Cups a Day, With Demand Peaking After Lunch
Instant smoothies are made by loading dedicated frozen fruit cups into a machine, which produces a drink in about a minute. Prices generally run 3,000 to 3,500 won ($2.20 to $2.50). Lower prices than at cafes and shorter waiting times are drawing customers.
Seven-Eleven's sales data shows demand peaking after lunch. Sales were highest between noon and 2 p.m., accounting for 20% of the total, followed by 17% from 2 to 4 p.m. The window from noon to 6 p.m. made up 51% of sales. The pattern is read as reflecting demand for after-lunch desserts and cool afternoon snacks.
Women accounted for a large share of buyers. Among Seven-Eleven's instant smoothie customers, women made up 65%, compared with 35% for men. Mobile orders also grew quickly. In June, sales of same-day pickup orders for instant smoothies through the Seven-Eleven app rose 3.1 times from the previous month, jumping to 6.6 times in July.
Foreign tourists have emerged as a major consumer group. When Seven-Eleven analyzed foreign customers' purchases last month at about 80 stores in major tourist areas including Myeongdong, Gwanghwamun, Sokcho, Busan and Jeju, instant smoothies ranked among the top five most popular items among foreign shoppers.
Sales are also rising quickly at CU. The chain, which first introduced instant smoothies in June last year, recently passed 500,000 cumulative cups sold. As of last month it operated the drinks at about 300 stores and plans to expand to some 500 by year-end.
Sales jumped sharply at stores with heavy foot traffic in particular. Based on sales over the past three months, CU's Seongsu Dessert Park, Everland and Myeongdong Station stores ranked at the top, with the Seongsu Dessert Park store selling about 300 cups a day.
Four Convenience Store Chains Ramp Up Smoothie Competition
The operators are widening their product ranges to give consumers more choices. On top of its existing mixed-berry, strawberry-banana and watermelon offerings, CU added an "ABC Smoothie" combining apple, beet and carrot, along with a product using acai berry and banana. The expansion targets consumers who value health and convenience.
GS25's smoothie sales are also climbing steeply. Sales from January to July this year rose 118% from the same period a year earlier. Its 63 Building store in Yeouido, Seoul, sold as many as 180 cups in a single day, and at that store smoothies overtook cigarettes to become the top-selling product overall. GS25 has added watermelon and cafe-latte smoothies and plans to raise the number of participating stores to more than 300 by the end of this month.
emart24 has joined the competition as well. Its smoothie sales rose an average of 61% a month in the first half of this year. Last month it introduced a "Triple Berry Smoothie" using acai berry, now sold at about 200 stores.
The chains are also sharpening their machines. GS25 developed its own dedicated smoothie machine and frozen fruit cups suited to convenience stores. CU introduced a new machine, the TEAF5, equipped with a hot-water boiler and an automatic high-temperature washing function. Seven-Eleven brought in a smoothie machine used in Japan and ran localization testing in South Korea for more than a year. When a dedicated cup is loaded, the machine automatically adjusts the mixing time and rotation speed for each product and cleans the rotating blade after use.
Seven-Eleven plans to more than double the number of stores offering smoothies within the year. CU also plans to expand to more than 500 stores this year. emart24 says it will add new products and increase its store count in stages.
Rather Than More Stores, One More Cup: Building a Year-Round Offering
Behind the convenience store industry's push into instant smoothies is a plateau in store numbers. Based on data from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the four chains — GS25, CU, Seven-Eleven and emart24 — had 53,266 stores at the end of last year, down 1,586 from 54,852 a year earlier. As a strategy of boosting sales through new store openings alone has run into limits, finding products that can lift the sales and average spending of existing stores has become important.
While convenience stores' instant-food competition once centered on lunch boxes, triangular rice balls and brewed coffee, it has recently expanded to drinks made on-site. The ability to watch frozen fruit blend inside the machine is also cited as a draw for young consumers and foreign tourists.
