Of all the Korean food companies at this year’s Summer Fancy Food Show, Lotte Wellfood held the biggest booth and what appeared to be the most influential campaign. Chef Hanyi Lee, Pastry Chef at Jean-Georges who will soon join Gui Steakhouse as sous chef, led the tasting menu that visitors tasted at the booth.
The show, organized by the Specialty Food Association, ran June 28 to 30 this year at the Javits Center. It drew more than 2,400 companies from 60 countries, and attendance reportedly topped 30,000, most of them distributors and trade buyers. Lotte, an international company, purchased a booth with the intention of widening its U.S. distribution network. The booth was split into five zones (Pepero, ZERO, K-SNACK, ICE and FOOD) and showcased 58 products.
Lotte products already sit on the shelves of H Mart and major American supermarkets. The goal in New York this summer was to push beyond those steady sellers. Richard Sung, Senior Manager of National Sales at Lotte International America and a 19-year veteran of the company, emphasized that Chef Hanyi’s job was to introduce new flavors built around what American shoppers want.
Sung said Lotte picked Chef Hanyi for two reasons: her focus on bringing Korean flavors to global audiences, and her track record at the same show a year earlier. In 2025 she ran the Bunsik.zip booth for the K-food company WE’D LIKE, where she prepared celebrity Chef Jung Ji-Sun’s Mala Cream Shrimp Dim Sum. Sung, who oversaw her work this year, called her “undoubtedly critical” to the booth’s success.
Chef Hanyi’s lineup started with Pepero, the chocolate-dipped biscuit stick that is already a fixture in Asian groceries across the U.S. Rather than serve the familiar version, Chef Hanyi introduced a Strawberry Almond flavor, pairing the crisp biscuit with strawberry and almond. Sung said it was a hit with guests. She also served Samgak Kimbap, a triangle-shaped kimbap with a generous filling. The product is aimed squarely at the kimbap craze that Trader Joe’s frozen version set off in the U.S. It goes from freezer to plate in 90 seconds in the microwave, and Lotte used the show to launch a new line of flavors for American buyers.
Ice cream is where Chef Hanyi’s Michelin-starred pastry training showed the most. Alongside Gukhabang Ice Cream, made with traditional sweet red bean paste, she chose Dalgona Corn Ice Cream. Corn ice cream is unfamiliar to most Americans. Dalgona is not: the Korean honeycomb toffee became known worldwide through Netflix’s Squid Game. Putting the two together gave Western visitors an easy way into a flavor they might otherwise skip.
The last stop Chef Hanyi organized was Lotte’s ZERO line of sugar-free desserts, sweetened with maltitol. Chef Hanyi served Zero Jelly, Zero Chocolate Chip Cookies and Zero Matcha Monaka Ice Cream to speak to the wellness trend in American snacking. The Asia Business Daily reported that the ZERO zone caught buyers’ attention.
The stakes for Lotte are real. Its overseas sales passed KRW 1.2 trillion last year, and sales at its foreign subsidiaries rose 18% in the first quarter of 2026 to KRW 270.5 billion. Overseas business now makes up 32% of the company’s total. Sung said he expects Lotte’s American sales to grow steadily as a result of the show.
For Chef Hanyi, it was her second straight year at the Fancy Food Show putting Korean flavors in front of international buyers in the essential role of Chef, first for WE’D LIKE with Chef Jung Ji-Sun and now for Lotte. This year her role was undoubtedly critical to Lotte’s success according to Sung, as expected from such an exemplary and talented culinary artist.
