Lotte Wellfood Accused of Mimicking Nongshim's Bestselling 'Muktaekkang' Snack

Lotte Wellfood Co. Ltd faces backlash for its soon-to-launch "Nogari Chip," criticized for closely resembling Nongshim Co. Ltd's hit snack, "Muktaekkang." Observers claim striking similarities in concept and packaging.

As per The Korea Times, Lotte Wellfood is set to launch its new chip in early September. It was added that the snack was created to compete with Nongshim's Muktaekkang, which has achieved great success in the market. In fact, stocks have run out, and retailers often have to inform their customers that Muktaekkang is already sold out.

Now, many observers are throwing cold comments directed at Lotte Wellfood. They say its Nogari Chip is too similar to Nongshim's hit snack. They pointed out that the product's concept and the packaging are also alike. The similarities caused critics and industry officials to accuse Lotte of imitating Muktaekkang.

"It is pretty much the same concept. Lotte plagiarized Nongshim's well-selling Muktaekkang," a customer said regarding the issue. "Nogari and Muktae are made from the same fish and are the most popular seafood snacks here that go well with beer. It is obvious that Lotte wants to take advantage of the current popularity of Nongshim snacks with its new item."

In any case, Chosun reported that as Nongshim's Moktae reached high popularity in the Korean market, Nogari suddenly appeared. The former's Muktaekang Cheongyang Mayo was introduced in June and immediately sold out. On the other hand, Lotte Wellfood said its "Oing Nogari Chips Cheongyang Mayo Flavor" is coming next month.

A critic said Lotte's new snack is a "Me too" product being released to increase sales. They said some companies try to bolster their sales by duplicating popular products like Nongshim's Muktaekang, which sold about one million bags within just the first week after its launch.

Meanwhile, in response to the comments, an official of Lotte Wellfood said, "Nogari Chip is part of our 'Oing' snack brand series that only adopts seafood as the base material. We have been developing it at our lab since early this year. It was a coincidence that the concept of our new snack overlaps with that of Nongshim."

He added, "About the packaging, we took the concept from a common pub we found in Euljiro, where people eat dried pollack with Cheongyang mayo. We just made that scene into an image and printed it on the snack's packaging."

Photo by: Lotte/Wikimedia Commons(Public Domain)