Chicken is the best K-food that the world is paying attention to

Amid growing global interest in Korean culture, the K-food that the world has paid attention to and enjoyed the most has turned out to be chicken.

The results of a Korean food consumer survey conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Food and Rural Affairs and the Korean Food Promotion Institution in July and August of last year targeting 8,500 citizens in 17 major foreign cities, including New York, Paris, and Beijing indicated that the Korean food they liked most and often ate throughout the year was “Korean chicken.”

Of the total respondents, 76.1% answered that they had experienced Korean food. Among them, Korean-style chicken accounted for 30.0%, ahead of kimchi (27.7%), bibimbap (27.2%), tteokbokki (18.0%), and gimbap (15.5%).

Korean chicken was ranked first with 16.1% as the most preferred Korean food menu by foreigners. The rise in favorability for Korean cuisine is presumed to be the results of Korea’s rising image in association with its culture such as K-pop and K-dramas as well as the country’s steady overseas promotion of Korean food.

The most notable is the fact that Korean chicken has taken the place of the hottest K-food, overtaking kimchi, which was considered synonymous with Korean food to foreigners for so long. Korean-style chicken has featured a variety of tastes while showing unique characteristics through the combination of Korean ingredients. The evolution is still in progress.

The fact that Koreans are really serious about fried chicken is evident in K-dramas and K-movies, with the dish appearing as a favorite food of performers regardless of genre.

Seeing the main characters in K-movies and K-dramas enjoying chicken, foreigners have naturally paid attention to the dish highly favored by Koreans.

Let’s see how Korean-style chicken further develops and globalizes down the road.