Customers shop at Homeplus's new Mega Food Market store at Ganseok branch in Incheon on Feb. 17. Courtesy of Homeplus

By Kim Jae-heun

Homeplus is looking to improve profitability by revamping its grocery stores to focus on premium fresh foods this year, company officials said Tuesday.

The retail giant first introduced its "Mega Food Market" at its Ganseok branch in Incheon in February, by moving its bakery and salad corners closer to its entrance to attract more customers.

"We also diversified our product lines for convenient foods at the grocery store in accordance with our customers' preferences, which turned out to be successful," a Homeplus official said.

The revenue of its bakery brand, "Mon Boulanger," at Mega Food Market between Feb. 17 and March 6 soared by 75 percent year-on-year.

Homeplus has also launched what it calls, its "Fresh To Go" market, where customers can choose their own toppings and staff there make salads directly for them. The retailer opened up the whole kitchen for people to be able to see the salad making process. Homeplus said that it has sold over 1,400 packs of salad in the four days since the project's opening.

After opening Mega Food Market in the Ganseok branch, its daily sales there reached 1.1 billion won ($886,024). The figure marks the highest revenue that any Homeplus branch has achieved in a single day.

Other stores ― like the Seoul World Cup branch in Seoul and the Chungra branch in Incheon ― that also opened Mega Food Markets ― showed that their revenues increased by 150 percent and 120 percent, respectively, between Feb. 17 and Feb. 20.

Homeplus plans to open Mega Food Markets in 17 more stores across the country this year. Currently, it operates seven.

"The Mega Food Market is the future for Homeplus. We offer diverse customer experiences there for people to come and enjoy," the Homeplus official said.

Homeplus has been experiencing difficulties for the last five years. Its operating profit has declined every year from 320.9 billion won in 2016 to 240.4 billion won in 2017 and 109.1 billion won in 2018.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic also made the situation worse and Homeplus' profit in 2020 fell to 93.3 billion won.

"We had been losing profit due to the decreasing number of customers visiting our stores. We had also failed to satisfy our customers' demands. However, the development of new menus and offering differentiated products has improved our sales," the official said.