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
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”.
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.
Shin was born the youngest in a family of 10 children in 1921 in Ulsan, then a small port town in Korea’s southeast. After landing in Tokyo, he wound up delivering newspapers while studying at a technical college. He adopted a Japanese name – Shigemitsu – to help him blend in with his fellow students and later, business partners.
