CJ partners with SOHO China

CJ Foodworld in Beijing

CJ Group formed a partnership with China’s biggest real-estate developer SOHO China Tuesday to facilitate expansion of its food business in Asia’s largest market, industry insiders said Monday.

An official representing CJ Foodville, they said signed an agreement with a counterpart from the Chinese developer in Beijing, Tuesday.

Under the agreement, Foodville, CJ group’s food business arm, will be given priority for space in buildings or shopping malls owned by the Chinese company.

Foodville owns several leading food brands in Korea such as VIP’s family restaurant, Tous les Jours bakery, Twosome Place cafe, and Korean food restaurant Bibigo. SOHO China, co-owned by its founder Pan Shiy and his wife Zhang Xin, has built or owns commercial buildings with a total gross floor area of more than 1.75 million square meters.

“SOHO China wants Foodville’s food brands to have a business presence in its buildings and shopping malls to attract visitors, while Foodville wants the convenience of SOHO’s broad location base to quickly expand into the Chinese market,” an industry insider told The Korea Times. “The agreement will satisfy both sides.”

Detailed information about the agreement was not immediately available, but people familiar with the case said the contract will pave the way for all brands CJ Group’s related to food and entertainment services to operate in SOHO-owned buildings.

CJ also owns Korea’s largest multiplex cinema chain CGV.

The Seoul-headquartered group is eager to promote Korean food in China and the some 1.3 billion potential customers there.

CJ Foodville CEO Heo Min-heoi told The Korea Times that China is a “key market” for the company.

“We will form partnerships with Chinese companies to increase the number of restaurants and stores selling Korean food,” Heo said. “Eventually we aim to have 10,000 stores worldwide by 2017, posting five trillion won ($4.47 billion) in sales and 310 billion won in operating profit by the target year.”

In line with the global strategy, the company opened the first “CJ Foodworld,” a complex of CJ’s four food brands VIPs, Tous les Jours, Twosome Place and Bibigo, in Lido, an affluent district in downtown Beijing, Sunday.

“The first CJ Foodworld in China will become a cornerstone for our business there,” he said. “In the near future, the chains will have a presence in many other countries.”

The company plans to open 25 more Tous les Jours cafes and six more Bibigo restaurants in China by the end of the year.

In July, the firm opened Bibigo a flagship restaurant specializing in Korea’s signature dish “bibimbap” (a bowl of steamed rice mixed with various vegetables) in London in the latest in a series of efforts by the company to increase public awareness of Korean food in Europe.

CJ Foodville currently has 103 stores in 10 countries ㅡ the United States, the Great Britain, China, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippine, Malaysia, Cambodia and Japan. <The Korea Times/Park Si-soo>

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