Credit: E-Mart.
According to E-Mart 이마트, a big box retailer analogous to Target or Carrefour, sales of ready-to-eat food like sandwiches and gimbap 김밥 saw a 12% increase year-over-year between January and May of this year. The greatest increases were seen during lunch hours, at locations near office buildings. The eMart location in Yeouido 여의도, the home of South Korea’s largest financial firms, enjoyed a 71.9% year-over-year increase in sales of ready-to-eat foods.
The good news for E-Mart reflects a dire situation for workers who would typically patronize restaurants, or for workers who opted for ready-to-eat foods, Seoul’s ubiquitous convenience stores. Against the backdrop of a wobbly economy, however, workers are now trekking the extra distance to E-Mart locations rather than buying food at convenience stores closer to their workplaces in order to arbitrage the small difference in price between the corner store and a big box retailer.
