Fresh Easy

What Fresh Easy does

Fresh Easy is a Seoul-headquartered, private South Korean meal kit and HMR (home meal replacement) distributor founded in 2016 by CEO Jung Joong-Kyo. The company delivers pre-portioned meal ingredients, ready meals, and convenience foods to Korean households via its fresheasy.co.kr platform, operating with a headcount of 101–250 employees. As of the available data, Fresh Easy has positioned itself as a category consolidator rather than a single-brand operator.

Between November 2021 and January 2022, Fresh Easy executed an aggressive inorganic expansion, acquiring four companies: Dr. Kitchen (a competing meal kit brand, Nov 2021), TASTY9 (prepared food line, Jan 2022), Line Logistics System (last-mile cold-chain delivery, Jan 2022), and HEODAK (허닭, a chicken breast and convenience food brand operating heodakmarket.com, Jan 2022). This sequence transformed Fresh Easy from a meal-kit pure-play into a vertically integrated, multi-brand food platform spanning product brands, prepared-food categories, and proprietary logistics.

Fresh Easy has raised approximately $261.9 million across seven disclosed funding rounds from 2017 through November 2021. The investor base is broad and high-quality for the Korean market, including Anchor Equity Partners (lead of the $169.8M Series 3 in Nov 2021), Korea Development Bank, Industrial Bank of Korea, NH Investment & Securities, Korea Investment & Securities, Hana Financial Investment, GS Shop, SBVA, SBI Investment Korea, and multiple venture and growth funds. The capital trajectory and rapid post-raise M&A activity indicate a company using growth equity to consolidate Korea's fragmented meal-kit and HMR category rather than to achieve incremental organic growth.

Name

Fresh Easy

Website

https://fresheasy.co.kr

Company type

Private

Founded year

2016

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

Fresh Easy is a Seoul-based meal kit and HMR distributor founded in 2016, serving South Korean households with pre-portioned meal kits and convenience foods. It operates a vertically integrated, multi-brand platform built through acquisitions of HEODAK, TASTY9, Dr. Kitchen, and Line Logistics System.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Meal Kits and Home Meal Replacement (HMR)

NAICS

Perishable Prepared Food Manufacturing (311991), Frozen Food Manufacturing (31141), Other Specialty Food Retailers (44529)

SIC

Food And Kindred Products (2000), Miscellaneous Food Preparations & Kindred Products (2090), Canned, Frozen & Preservd Fruit, Veg & Food Specialties (2030)

akta.pro primary industry

Meal kits & subscription meal components manufacturing (AFAKAHAD)

akta.pro secondary industries

Frozen Meal Kits & Skillet Bags (CRADADAK), Meal Kits Featuring Meat/Seafood (Heat-and-Eat Components) (AFANAFAG), Chilled/ready-to-heat prepared meals manufacturing (AFAKAHAB), Online Fresh Food Specialists (Produce/Meat/Seafood) (CRAHAIAF)

Keywords

• Meal kit distribution
• Home meal replacement
• Ready-to-eat foods
• Convenience food retail
• HMR meal kits

Headquarters

HQ city

Seoul

HQ country

South Korea

HQ region

Asia

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Hardware or Manufacturing

Core offering

Fresh Easy is a South Korean distributor of meal kits and home meal replacement (HMR) products. Through its acquired brands — including HEODAK (chicken breast and convenience foods), TASTY9, and Dr.Kitchen — the company sells ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat meal solutions to individual consumers via online channels such as the HEODAK Official Mall.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• HEODAK Chicken Breast and Convenience Foods Brand of 닭가슴살 (chicken breast), HMR (Home Meal Replacement), 밀키트 (meal kits), and 간편식 (convenience foods) sold to Korean consumers via the HEODAK Official Mall e-commerce platform. Acquired by Fresh Easy on 2022-01-06.
• TASTY9 Meal Kits
• Dr.Kitchen Meal Kits

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Regional players

• Coupang Eats: Korean food delivery platform owned by Coupang. Adjacent channel for ready-to-eat meals and HMR products in Korea, competing for the same consumer meal occasions as Fresh Easy's portfolio.
• Kurly (Market Kurly): Korean premium grocery e-commerce and quick-commerce operator expanding into HMR and meal solutions. Operates in the same Korean consumer food market with overlap in fresh and prepared food delivery, making it an adjacent regional competitor.
• Yogiyo: Korean restaurant food delivery platform. Adjacent Korean consumer meal occasion competitor offering prepared meals on-demand, partially overlapping with Fresh Easy's ready-to-eat product extensions.

Direct peers

• HelloFresh: Global meal kit subscription leader operating in multiple geographies. Most directly comparable by business model (subscription meal kits delivered to households) and category, with meal kit + prepared meal hybrid offerings similar to Fresh Easy's TASTY9/HEODAK portfolio.
• Cookit (CJ Freshway): Korea's largest meal kit subscription service operated by CJ Group's food arm. Direct domestic competitor in Korean meal kits with similar subscription model and HMR product extensions, making it Fresh Easy's closest in-market peer.
• Marley Spoon: Global meal kit subscription company (owns Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon brand). Comparable subscription-based meal kit business model with similar target customers and DTC delivery approach to Fresh Easy.
• Blue Apron: US-based meal kit subscription pioneer. Comparable meal kit category, subscription model, and prepared-meal adjacencies, though serving a different geographic market. Useful as a public benchmark for subscription meal kit unit economics.

Broad incumbents

• GS Fresh: Korean food distribution and prepared food arm of GS Group. Operates in fresh produce, meal kits, and HMR categories with broader scale, making it a broad incumbent rather than direct niche competitor.
• CheilJedang (CJ CheilJedang): Major Korean food manufacturer with HMR, frozen, and processed food lines including the Cookit meal kit brand. Overlaps with Fresh Easy's prepared meal manufacturing footprint, though at a far larger scale and as part of a diversified food conglomerate.

Others

• Lotte Mart / Lotte Food:

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds7 records

Investors19 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A4 records

Investments1 record

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Fresh Easy