Pokemon cake snacks are displayed on a shelf at a GS25 convenience store in Seoul on March 11. Yonhap

By Kim Jae-heun

With major bakery chains here raising prices sharply due to soaring grain and other raw material costs, relatively cheaper bread products sold at convenience stores have been received well by price-sensitive consumers, according to industry officials, Sunday.

CU, one of the country's largest convenience store franchises, saw its cake snack sales skyrocket by 72.1 percent in June from a year ago. GS25, operated by GS Retail, also said its sales of similar items jumped 47.8 percent.

It was the Pokemon Cake that started the growing popularity of such snack products sold at convenience stores back in February of this year, as it recorded accumulated sales of 50 million items as of July 12.

Consumers learned that such items sold at convenience stores are actually of reasonable quality and their prices are pretty competitive, in a time of global inflation.

"Thanks to the Pokemon Cake craze that grabbed many people's attention, we were also able to enjoy a big increase in the sales of similar products. Plus, we are benefiting from the rising price of items at popular bakery chains that have been affected by international wheat price increases," a GS25 Retail official said.

The local bakery industry is directly affected by international grain prices as over 90 percent of wheat in Korea is imported.

In June, the grain price closed at $319.21 per ton, up 27.9 percent from the previous year.

The price of raw sugar also increased by over 10 percent compared to earlier this year and petroleum price rises have contributed to pushing up logistics costs.

Popular bakery franchises like Paris Baguette and Tous Les Jours decided to raise prices for their baked products by 6.7 percent in January and 9.5 percent on average in July, respectively.

"It was inevitable for us to raise product prices due to the surging price of raw materials and ingredients from within and outside of the country. We made the decision after fully discussing it with our franchisees," a CJ Foodville official said. CJ Foodville is an operator of Tous Les Jours.