Lotte Liquor to launch yogurt-flavored Soonhari soju in the US

Lotte Liquor, the alcoholic beverage arm of Lotte Chilsung Beverage, said Tuesday that its yogurt-flavored Soonhari Chum-Churum soju will soon be sold in the US. 

Soonhari Yogurt soju is the latest in the company’s Chum Churum Sunhari line, created by adding fruit flavoring, such as citron, peach, apple and strawberry, to soju. It was manufactured exclusively for export.

Earlier this month, some 190,000 bottles of 360 milliliter-size Soonhari Yogurt soju were exported to the US, the company said.

The product will be sold via local supermarkets from mid-September in the western region of the US and late September in the eastern region, it added. 

“American customers are more accustomed to purchasing big-portion products, so we specially manufactured the large-size 750-milliliter bottle for previous Soonhari soju products. We also adopted a localization strategy for the yogurt-flavored version in terms of design,” said a Lotte Liquor official. “We will strive to make Soonhari the brand that can best represent Korean liquor.” 

Since its global launch in the US in 2015, sales of Soonhari have seen double-digit growth worldwide each year. Soonhari is sold in 30 countries including Canada, Vietnam, Taiwan and Australia. Its sales in the US market have seen average annual growth of 40 percent. 

By Kim Da-sol (ddd@heraldcorp.com)