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Despite a declining population of infants and young children due to worsening low birth rates, the kids’ meal service market is gaining momentum as investment per child intensifies under the "gold kids" trend and the "ten-pocket" phenomenon, where up to ten adults are willing to spend for a single child. Major meal service companies are actively targeting the kids’ meal market to secure future customers.

According to the meal service industry as of July 24, the kids’ meal service market is worth approximately 1 trillion won. Although this accounts for a small portion of the overall group meal service market, which is worth about 20 trillion won, the trend of kindergartens and daycare centers prioritizing meal quality as a core competitive strength is accelerating competition focused on high-priced, high-quality offerings going forward.

Daycare centers and kindergartens have traditionally provided meals by purchasing and preparing ingredients themselves. However, as food ingredient safety standards have become stricter and the placement of nutritionists has become mandatory, these institutions are increasingly relying on trustworthy companies to supply their ingredients. Although the overall population of infants and young children is declining due to low birth rates, standards for children’s health and safe food among parents and educational institutions have risen sharply, leading to a greater tendency to trust professional meal services for daycare centers and kindergartens.

An official at a daycare center in Gyeonggi Province stated, “Most products are either organic or pesticide-free. When the city sends us a monthly menu plan, we order all necessary ingredients from suppliers. We do not have the time or staff to purchase raw ingredients directly from markets or supermarkets, so we trust and use ingredients delivered by major companies, which makes both the staff and parents satisfied.”

The steady growth in demand due to the expansion of public meal service platforms is also cited as a key factor behind the expansion of the kids’ meal market. As meal quality control at daycare centers has become a major policy focus, hygiene and nutritional standards have been strengthened. In particular, as the government works to integrate kindergartens and daycare centers—and to raise daycare meal costs and quality to the level of kindergartens—the meal and snack standards for both institutions are becoming more systematic, and ingredient safety standards are being reinforced to meet the level of the School Meals Act.

The kids’ meal market is currently led by Pulmuone and CJ Freshway. Pulmuone is targeting the premium segment with its brand image of environmentally friendly and wholesome food, while CJ Freshway is expanding its influence in both the meal and children’s snack sectors with a broad product line. Ourhome is expanding its presence in the kids’ meal service market by offering customized ingredient packaging tailored to the needs of daycare centers and kindergartens.

Pulmuone Foodmerce supplies a variety of premium ingredients for children's meals under the "Pul’s Kids" brand and is expanding its range of health-oriented products by leveraging Pulmuone's parent company’s "Earth Diet" brand, promoting plant-based meat alternatives such as soy meat. The company prioritizes supplying HACCP-certified products in line with local government ingredient management directions, expanding pesticide residue testing, GAP-certified agricultural products, multi-level radiation testing, and origin certification. Pulmuone Foodmerce also enforces its own food additive standards by maintaining a “Pulmuone No-No List” that prohibits the use of 115 specific additives. Pul’s Kids has posted an average annual growth rate of about 4% from 2023 to last year.

CJ Freshway operates the kids’ food specialty brand "Ainuri," delivering approximately 23,000 types of agricultural, livestock, and marine products, as well as staple and side dishes, desserts, and more to around 8,000 daycare centers and kindergartens across the country. In response to stricter standards for kids’ ingredients, the premium product line features eco-friendly and antibiotic-free raw materials, strengthened nutritional content, and domestic ingredients. Alongside the traditional kindergarten and daycare meal channels, CJ Freshway is expanding its supply reach to kids’ cafes, care centers, and other spaces that collectively encompass all aspects of children’s daily lives—including care, learning, and nourishment. The company’s kids’ meal ingredient sales have registered an average annual growth rate of 17% from 2023 to last year.

Pulmuone and CJ Freshway are also extending their reach into the public sector. Since July of last year, they have been participating in the “Seoul Ddeunddeun Meal Service” project run by Seoul City and the Seoul Eco-Friendly Distribution Center, supplying processed food products to over 2,000 daycare centers in Seoul.

Ourhome is running the premium kids’ ingredient brand "Ourkids," supplying safer ingredients such as eco-friendly produce (pesticide-free and organic), antibiotic-free and animal welfare-certified livestock, and seafood tracked by traceability systems. The company offers about 1,000 customized children’s ingredient products designed with young children's eating habits and meal preparation environments in mind, including packaging and portion sizes. Ourhome ensures systematic food safety by testing for pathogens such as food poisoning bacteria and norovirus, and for pesticide residues, heavy metals, and radiation. Ourkids has seen an average annual growth rate of more than 3% from 2023 to last year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.