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The story of Lotte: how a chewing gum maker in Japan became one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates
- Formed by a Korean migrant in Tokyo in 1948 to produce chewing gum, Lotte today is a global retailing, hospitality and leisure conglomerate
- Founder Shin Kyuk-ho was inspired after seeing US troops handing out gum to children; today its best known product is another gum, sugar-free Xylitol
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In 1941, during World War II, a young Korean man decided his ambitions were bigger than the family pig farm. After finishing high school, Shin Kyuk-ho boarded a ship from the Korean port city of Busan to Japan with dreams of becoming a novelist. Instead he would build one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates, the Lotte brand, and become known as Asia’s “chewing gum tycoon”.
Today, Lotte has a global chain of fast food restaurants, hotels and theme parks. Its 123-storey headquarters in Seoul is the sixth tallest building in the world. But while Lotte may be a proud symbol of South Korea’s rapid rise, the brand’s history is complicated, and involves the troubled history between Korea and Japan.
It all started with chewing gum.
“Gum has been Lotte Confectionery’s most significant product,” a spokesman for Lotte Confectionery told the Post. “And among that, Lotte’s Xylitol gum has had the greatest impact. It’s often seen as the ‘national gum’ of Korea.” Today, the green and white packs of Xylitol can be found on convenience store shelves around the world.
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