“Not even iPhones or Rolexes drew crowds like this” ... Rice-cake rush brings 150 groups into line by 5 a.m.

[Financial News] “The mochi has GODIVA chocolate inside, and even the logo is stamped on it, so I came because I really wanted to try it. I’m planning to give it to my girlfriend as a gift.”
A university student identified only by the surname Kim, whom we met outside Lotte World Mall in Jamsil, Songpa-gu, Seoul, on the morning of the 22nd, said this while waiting for GODIVA’s “fresh-fruit mochi,” which has recently sparked a craze. Though it was still early in the morning, the queue had already filled the underground mall corridor.
The reporter visited the GODIVA store at 9 a.m., an hour and a half before it opened at 10:30 a.m., but a staff member on site had already explained: “Although we limit purchases to four per person, all the on-site queue slots for today are full. The people standing here now are waiting to collect their products after registering in advance.”
Taking over from Dubai chewy cookies (Dujjonku), which swept the dessert market from late last year to early this year, mochi and chapssal-tteok, with their soft and chewy textures, have recently surged in popularity. The so-called “rice-cake run”—a mashup of rice cake and “open run,” or lining up before a store opens—to get popular rice-cake products is spreading, with people queuing before stores open.
Lotte World Mall in Jamsil was packed with people joining the rice-cake rush. Fresh-fruit mochi, which the Belgian chocolate brand GODIVA makes with fresh fruit such as strawberries and tangerines added to chocolate ganache and sells in a daily limited run of 500, has become a symbol of the craze. Across from it, the fruit-filled chapssal-tteok shop Hanjeongseon has also drawn foreign tourists by promoting the Korean term chapssal-tteok instead of mochi, with queues of more than 400 groups even on weekday afternoons. Knotted, a dessert café in Lotte World Mall in Jamsil, has also launched “Waku Donut Mochi,” inspired by the recently popular “Waku Ball”; customers have to wait at least two hours to buy it.

The public’s explosive interest in rice-cake desserts is also reflected in the data. According to Google Trends, as of the 22nd, searches for the keyword “GODIVA mochi” had surged by at least 5,000% compared with a year earlier.
Consumers are seeking out rice-cake desserts because the distinctive chewiness of rice cakes, combined with a variety of ingredients, offers both novel flavors and a sense of rarity. Lee, a person in their 60s who visited Hanjeongseon that day, said, “I usually enjoy traditional rice cakes like injeolmi and baekseolgi, but my daughter told me that chapssal-tteok with fruit or chocolate is popular these days, so I came to check it out.” Lee added, “I’ve only ever seen long lines every morning, but there are relatively fewer people waiting today, so I thought I’d try buying some.”
As competition to buy mochi from the early hours of the morning has intensified, posts have even appeared on secondhand trading platforms such as Karrot Market seeking part-time workers to queue on someone’s behalf for a daily wage of 100,000 won.
The retail industry is also locked in fierce competition to bring popular rice-cake brands into its stores. In particular, Lotte World Mall in Jamsil has drawn a strong response with a series of “Rice-Cake Pilgrimage” pop-up stores bringing together well-known rice-cake brands from across the country, including Yukgu Mill and Morak Jeolmi. 
A retail industry representative said, “In the early days of a dessert trend, the open-run frenzy tends to intensify because of the rarity of getting to try something that others can’t easily find.” The representative forecast, “Since rice cakes are a traditional food familiar to Koreans, they will maintain broad popularity, unlike Dujjonku, which was only a passing fad.”



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