Consumers visiting a CU store, South Korea’s largest convenience store chain under BGF Retail Co., can now buy fresh meats from a vending machine.

BGF Retail said on Thursday it has installed an Internet of Things (IOT)-controlled vending machine that offers fresh meats including Korean beef and pork at one of its branches in Samsong, Goyang, Gyeonggi Province.

According to the company, its IoT-backed smart vending machine is an unmanned fresh meat sales platform that was jointly developed by National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, KT Corp., and Alpha Meat Korea. The machine - a combination of a dry-aging refrigerator and a vending machine - will allow grocery shoppers to conveniently purchase fresh meat through simple touches on the screen. CU is the first in the industry to offer such a service, the company said.

The smart vending machine is integrated with IoT technology, which allows its operator to remotely monitor product quality and expiry date and control refrigerator temperature and humidity with a mobile app.

BGF Retail plans to test operate the vending machine at its CU store in Samsong before gradually expanding its application across other stores.

Consumers will be able to purchase different parts of first-grade hanwoo, or Korean beef certified by Nonghyup, for soup and steak, as well as handon, or Korean pork, including pork belly and shoulder parts, from the vending machine.

Fresh meat in a smart vending machine will be sold in small amounts of about 300 rams given that a majority of convenience store consumers are single- and two-member households. BGF Retail has introduced the smart vending machine for fresh meat based on the projection that the number of consumers going grocery shopping at convenience stores is expected to grow further with the steady rise in the number of single-person households in Korea.

In fact, sales of fresh vegetables at CU jumped 19.9 percent last year from a year ago while livestock products 24.2 percent over the same period. Amid the growing demand, CU, with CJ Freshway Corp. launched sales of 10 different types of vegetables including carrots, potatoes, and round lettuce packaged in small quantity priced at 1,000 won ($0.93) per pack targeting small member households.

An unnamed official from CU said that the convenience store will expand its high quality and reasonably-priced fresh product range at its stores.

By Lee Yoo-jin and Lee Eun-joo

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]