Spending Chuseok alone? Convenience stores serve up holiday feasts for solo diners.
CU, GS25, 7-Eleven and Emart24 are launching affordable boxed meals, individual dishes, rice rolls and desserts as single-person households increasingly celebrate the holiday alone.
Chuseok-themed ready-to-eat meals that convenience store chain CU launched ahead of the holidayCU
Those in Korea spending the Chuseok holiday alone can now put together a holiday meal for just a few thousand won as convenience stores expand their festive offerings to cater to the growing number of solo holiday diners.
Korea’s four major convenience store chains — CU, GS25, 7-Eleven, and Emart24 — rolled out ready-to-eat holiday meals from Sept. 15 ahead of the harvest festival holiday break, which runs from Sept. 24 to Sept. 27.
This year’s offerings have expanded beyond boxed meals to include individual dishes, gimbap (seaweed rice rolls), jumeokbap (rice balls) and desserts.
The products target a growing number of single-person households spending the autumn harvest holiday alone rather than traveling home to see family, as well as consumers seeking an easier and more affordable way to enjoy traditional holiday food amid high prices.
CU launched a range of Chuseok ready-to-eat meals, including a full boxed meal and individual dishes. Its “Pungseong Hangawi” boxed meal is priced at 6,500 won ($4.80), includes soy sauce-marinated bulgogi, japchae (stir-fried glass noodles), five-color skewers, kimchi jeon (pancakes), seafood and chive mixed jeon, three types of seasoned vegetables — spinach, bracken and bellflower root — and stir-fried kimchi. Pungseong Hangawi means “a bountiful Chuseok,” with hangawi being another Korean word for the holiday.
Its 5,600 won “Pungseong Hangawi Japchae and Assorted Jeon” (translated) pairs japchae topped with bulgogi with five-color skewers, chive jeon and kimchi jeon.
CU earlier began selling a 3,500 won pack of sesame-filled songpyeon (moon-shaped rice cakes) on Sept. 9, containing four white and four mugwort rice cakes.
Chuseok-themed ready-to-eat meals offered by the convenience store chain GS25GS25
GS25’s 6,900 won “Monthly Lunchbox: Hangawi Edition” (translated) comes in a nine-compartment container filled with black rice, tteokgalbi (short rib patties), corn jeon, songpyeon and other dishes. Its 6,900 won “Chuseok Japchae & Jeon” features donggeurangttaeng (Korean pan-fried meat patties), five-color skewers and japchae made with meat and mushrooms.
The 3,700 won “Chuseok Bulgogi Gochujang Bibim Gimbap” combines six ingredients, including bulgogi and seasoned vegetables, to recreate the flavors of gochujang (Korean chili paste) bibimbap in gimbap form.
GS25 is also offering a 1,900 won “Chuseok Maekjeok Jumeokbap,” featuring grilled marinated pork, called maekjeok, atop rice cooked with seasoned thistle.
7-Eleven has launched the 3,600 won “Bok Gadeuk Tteokgalbi Gimbap,” filled with Jeolla-style grilled short rib patties and a cooked egg, and the 2,400 won “Bok Gadeuk Meat Skewer Musubi,” topped with a thick meat patty. Bok gadeuk means “filled with good fortune” in Korean.
“We applied technology that keeps the rice moist and pleasantly chewy even when eaten cold without microwaving,” a 7-Eleven representative said.
Chuseok-themed ready-to-eat meals, including boxed meals and gimbap (seaweed rice roll), offered by convenience store chain 7-Eleven7-ELEVEN
Emart24’s 6,900 won “Hangawi Full Moon Feast” (translated) boxed meal features 10 items, including three types of seasoned vegetables and mini yakgwa (a sweet honey cookie).
Sales of convenience store holiday boxed meals have continued to rise. CU’s holiday meal sales rose 18.5 percent on year in 2023, 20.8 percent in 2024 and 12.2 percent in 2025. Areas with high concentrations of single-person households, including neighborhoods near universities and studio apartment districts, accounted for 60.5 percent of CU’s holiday boxed meal sales last year.
GS25 also recorded double-digit on-year growth in Chuseok boxed meal sales each year from 2022 through 2025.
The growth reflects changes in how people spend traditional holidays.
A total of 32 percent of respondents planned to spend Chuseok alone, according to a survey by Hankook Research of 1,000 adults nationwide in September last year. Among them, 19 percent said they had family members living elsewhere but would not meet them, while 13 percent said they had no family to visit.
Korea has nearly 10.3 million single-person households, accounting for 42.3 percent of all households, according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.
“As the trend of spending holidays alone continues to spread, the range of ready-to-eat holiday dishes will become increasingly diverse,” a convenience store industry representative said.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
