South Korea’s CU convenience store launches 300th branch in Mongolia

CU store chain revealed it has opened its 300th outlet in Mongolia. The South Korean convenience store franchise company said its latest store is located in Ulaanbaatar, and it sells different Mongolian food favorites including Khuushuur dumpling with beef, camel, or mutton filling.

The newest CU store in the region is also offering some popular Korean food such as tteokbokki spicy rice cake snack item. As per Aju Business Daily, CU’s owner, BGF Retail, confirmed the opening of its 300th branch in the capital city of Mongolia this week.

The company said the CU outlet is selling more easy-to-prepare food for the convenience of customers. There are lots of heat-and-eat food packages and desserts in the Ulaanbaatar branch compared to the other locations because the location has more young customers who are familiar with K-pop and overall South Korean culture.

BGF Retail shared that Mongolians especially love tteokbokki and South Korean fried food items. In fact, these are two of the best-sellers in CU stores there.

"Before we expanded our market into Mongolia, the idea of convenience store did not really exist in the country," Kim Seong Mo, BGF Retail's spokesman, told Aju Daily in an interview on Thursday.

BGF Retail also opened stores in Malaysia, where it is currently operating 130 branches. The company is aiming to have a total of 500 stores outside of South Korea by the second half of this year.

In any case, it was only in April 2022 that CU announced the opening of its 200th store in Mongolia. This just clearly shows that the convenience store chain is rapidly growing and effectively expanding its presence in the region.

"CU has succeeded in taking root quickly in the Mongolian market by carrying ready-to-eat items, developing local dishes into convenience store foods and offering a delivery service to cope with the coronavirus pandemic," the store chain stated at that time.