Cheongsong County, a mountainous region in the east side of South Korea, is one of the largest producers of apples in the country and is renowned for the quality of its produce. Cheongsong apple trees typically blossom in April and the fruits are harvested over a several week period in late September to October, but meticulous year-round care is required to produce the quality of apples the region is famed for.

This is why Cheongsong farmers had long been confounded by the 30-40% of “imperfect apples” produced each year, blemished by slight cosmetic defects such as spots and scratches despite tasting just as great as their “perfect” counterparts. Most distributors and retailers rejected these imperfect apples under the notion that Korean consumers would not buy them. This forced farmers to either sell the apples to factories for juice processing at giveaway prices or even just discard them, throwing away the fruit of their year’s worth of effort.

The innovative employees at Coupang knew there had to be a better way. The company had already been working with the Hanwoori Agricultural Cooperative to sell the cooperative’s apples under the Coupang Private Label Brand “Gomgom Apples,” and in 2020, CPLB introduced the “Gomgom Dimpled Apples” into its line of products to enable customers to buy imperfect apples at discount prices.

“I didn’t know how well they would sell, but I thought we’d give it a try,” said Gil-young Jang, Hanwoori’s CEO. Ji-yeon Park, a CPLB manager in charge of Gomgom Apples, believed that discerning Coupang customers would see the value of being able to buy great-tasting Cheongsong apples at a discounted price. “As they are delivered from the producer to the customers in a day or two without going through a complicated intermediary distribution process, customers could experience the original sweet taste and crunchiness of the Cheongsong apples as-is,” she said.

The results were better than even expected. “These are well-maintained apples that are nice and firm, with no soft spots or bruises,” read one customer review. “After seeing how hard farmers work, I’m going to keep buying these in the future. Even if there are imperfections, the apples are crunchy, sweet, and tart,” read another. 

With over 3,500 five-star reviews, Gomgom Dimpled Apples have received an overwhelmingly positive response from customers. In 2021, the cooperative sold around 160 tons of dimpled apples through Coupang, saving hundreds of thousands of apples from being discarded. The cooperative’s sales on Coupang have also grown rapidly. After partnering with the company at the end of 2019, the cooperative has seen its sales soar from 8 billion won to 30 billion won (around 6 to 23 million dollars) in just two years. The cooperative has also expanded its workforce from less than ten employees to sixty in that same period.

With the significant increase in sales through Coupang, Hanwoori has also grown new apple varieties and increased investment in its facilities. “After discovering Coupang and selling many fruits, our farmers can now focus their efforts solely on farming,” said Gil-young. “And as we develop products in a variety of areas, such as small packaged products, our farmers benefit as does our cooperative. That’s why we’re all so grateful to Coupang.”

Coupang’s efforts have also been lauded by experts in the industry. “It would be unwise for producers and consumers to dismiss high-quality apples for cheap processing simply because of small imperfections,” said Professor Tae-myung Yoon, the director of Kyungpook National University’s Apple Research Institute and a professor at the university’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “Coupang’s management philosophy and consumer focus, which value the high quality of Cheongsong apples and the hard efforts of their producers more highly than avoiding imperfections, can be a win-win model.” 

He added, “Consumers can enjoy Cheongsong apples of the highest quality at reasonable prices through Coupang.”