CJ America News

CJ Foods, the US-based affiliate of CJ CheilJedang, has unveiled plans to invest several hundred million dollars to build a 700,000-square-foot Asian food production facility in Sioux Falls, SD. The new facility will include automated food production lines, a warehouse and distribution center, shipping and receiving docks, and office space. By 2025, the new plant will accommodate more than 600 new jobs.

Mnet is gearing up to launch a new global project this year to debut a new girl group! On Monday, Jan. 11, Mnet released some details for their upcoming girl group project called “Girls Planet 999.” They shared that the show will involve participants from Korea, Japan, and China who have different languages and cultures but have the same dream of becoming an idol who will stand on the global stage.

South Korean actress Song Hye-kyo is reuniting with 2016’s Descendants of the Sun screenwriter Kim Eun-sook for a new Korean drama series. Studio Dragon and Hwa & Dam Pictures, the studios behind the still unnamed show, said that they are still looking for more cast members. The series, which will reportedly be directed by Ahn Gil-ho (Record of Youth, Memories of the Alhambra) is slated for a late 2021 or early 2022 premiere.

South Korean game maker NCSoft and entertainment giant CJ ENM said Tuesday they will establish a new entertainment joint venture this year. According to the memorandum of understanding signed Tuesday, the joint venture will combine NCSoft’s advanced information technology and CJ ENM’s expertise in the entertainment business to create new content.

CJ Olive Young Corp., Korea’s No. 1 health and beauty drugstore under South Korean conglomerate CJ Group, announced Tuesday it joined Southeast Asia’s leading online shopping platform Shopee. CJ Olive Young plans to run its brand shop on Shopee first in Indonesia and Malaysia and then expand to Taiwan in March. Shopee currently operates in seven Asian countries including Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.

We maintain a Buy rating and TP of W600,000 on CJCJ, noting that 2021 is to mark the first full year of collaboration with Schwan’s Company. Going forward, its Bibigo dumplings should become available in over 50% of mainstream US retail stores, given CJCJ’s ongoing signing of new contracts with large-scale distributors, starting with Target and Walmart.

Two people, Bang Si-Hyuk and Miky Lee were on the new Variety 500 list in 2020. Korea now has six people. CJ, in particular, now has two.

CJ CheilJedang announced on Dec. 22 that its Bibigo Dumpling sales at home and abroad surpassed one trillion won in 2020. The milestone is quite meaningful as it has been achieved by a single food item. CJ CheilJedang designed Bibigo Dumplings for both the domestic and overseas markets from the start. In Korea, the company broke the negative image of frozen foods with the product’s high quality.

Name a hit Korean drama airing now—or one that fared well during the past few years—and that drama was likely created with some input from Studio Dragon. Studio Dragon is where much of the k-drama magic happens. The company currently manages more than 100 directors and writers under its different subsidiaries and affiliates.

Home-made thriller drama series “Sweet Home” has garnered international popularity through Netflix, the world’s top over-the-top video content service. The series released on December 18 was based on a webtoon series of the same title. The drama was created by Studio Dragon, the drama-making wing of South Korean entertainment giant CJ ENM, as a Netflix Original series. According to Flixpatrol, Sweet Home topped popularity charts in seven countries including South Korea, Malaysia, Qatar and Thailand on December 21.