Banana milk a hit at Incheon airport as Chinese tourists snap it up by the cooler bag

At Incheon International Airport, convenience store fridges are turning into banana milk depots, as Chinese tourists snap up Korea’s iconic yellow-bottled drink by the armful.

Binggrae's Banana Flavored Milk bottles fill five shelves at a CU convenience store in Incheon International Airport's Terminal 1 Gate 5 on Sept. 22. [CU]

At Incheon International Airport, convenience store fridges are turning into banana milk depots, as Chinese tourists snap up Korea’s iconic yellow-bottled drink by the armful.

According to CU on Monday, its Terminal 1 Gate 5 location — where flights to China are concentrated — stocks hundreds of bottles of Binggrae’s Banana Flavored Milk every day. Around 700 bottles are delivered daily on weekdays and 1,400 on weekends, all of which sell out the same day. The main buyers are Chinese tourists.

“Chinese visitors bring cooler bags and clear out 10 to 20 bottles each,” said Kim Bo-kyeong, manager at CU Incheon Airport.

From January to August, Banana Flavored Milk was the top-selling product among foreign customers at nationwide CU stores, based on payments via Alipay, WeChat Pay and other foreign e-payment systems. On Chinese social media platforms like Weibo, it is frequently described as a “must-buy item when visiting Korea.”

“Foreigners find the combination of milk and banana unusual, and scenes in Korean dramas and films showing people drinking it from the moon jar-shaped bottle have made it a must-purchase souvenir,” a Binggrae official said.

In Korea, around 800,000 bottles are sold daily, accounting for about 20 percent of Binggrae’s annual revenue.

Other convenience chains are also seeing surging demand. At GS25’s Incheon Airport branches, average daily orders of Banana Flavored Milk are 120 times higher than at regular stores.

“We put about 100 bottles on the shelves, but they sell out within an hour, so we’re constantly restocking,” said Kim Bo-kyeong, a GS25 manager, adding that orders will be further increased ahead of the visa waiver for Chinese group tourists later this month. CU also plans to boost its orders by 50 percent this week.

With Korea allowing visa-free entry for Chinese group travelers from Sept. 29 through next June, demand for Banana Flavored Milk is expected to soar further.

As foreign tourists flock to convenience stores for Korean snacks, payments from overseas customers are rising sharply. GS25 reported a 66.5 percent increase in foreign e-payment sales from January to August this year compared to the same period last year.

“Korean-style yogurt has also become a hit, fueled by TikTok and other social media trends,” a GS25 official said. Emart24 also saw foreign payment sales climb by about 40 percent in the same period.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom. BY LIM SUN-YOUNG [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]