The story of a South Korean rice snack company that refused Japan’s demand to remove Dokdo, and chose to give up exporting, is making headlines in South Korea.
Starting from 2021, the baby rice snack company, called “Olbarem,” has been selling its products with a map of Dokdo and the phrase “Dokdo belongs to Korea” on the back of the packaging. This packaging led to a setback in exports to Japan. According to a report by Jeonnam Daily in May, Olbarem discussed exporting to Japan starting in December of last year. At that time, the company was facing financial difficulties, and a Japanese company proposed a large contract worth 15% of the company’s annual revenue.
However, the Japanese company demanded that Dokdo be removed in order to proceed with the trade. Ultimately, Olbarem’s CEO refused this demand.
A company employee, who had worked there for five years, expressed his confusion regarding the decision, stating on the JTBC program ‘Sageun Bangjang’ that he couldn’t understand how such a decision was made without considering the company’s or employees’ positions.
The CEO, on the other hand, explained that the insistence on including Dokdo imagery and wording was a matter of pride. He stated in a broadcast that he couldn’t remove the Dokdo imagery once it was included because of the pride involved, adding, “I couldn’t abandon national pride for immediate profit.”
He also mentioned, “Due to my father’s influence, I’ve been able to think about the meaning of Dokdo since I was young. As the snacks are for babies, I wanted them to naturally learn about Dokdo from a young age, so I included the Dokdo imagery.”
After this story became known, a word of mouth about “Dokdo rice snack” started spreading online, leading to a surge in orders. In response, Olbarem expressed gratitude on their website for customers calling their product “Dokdo rice snack” and noted that due to the unexpected surge in orders, all team members were working hard to meet the demand. They also informed that there might be some delays in delivery this week due to public holidays and courier closures.
Currently, this product is being exported to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other regions with Dokdo imagery on it.