Convenience stores take a slice out of Korea’s pizza market 

In Korea, pizza has traditionally been a party food — a large pie ordered whole and shared among family, friends, or coworkers. But as more people live alone, that's starting to shift: consumers are increasingly turning to smaller, cheaper pizzas sold at convenience stores, a trend that has also caught on with foreign tourists.

Unlike the large, topping-heavy pies sold by major chains, these convenience-store pizzas are sized for one person — a smaller portion at a fraction of the price. A GS25 pie runs around 7,000 won ($4.95), about a third of the 20,000 won that a whole franchise pizza costs.

The appeal of smaller portions is evident in everyday life. On Danggeun Market, a hyperlocal marketplace app best known for secondhand goods, posts offering to split buy-one-get-one pizza deals with neighbors are a common sight, as users seek to avoid ending up with more pizza than they can eat.

Single-person households now number 8.24 million, or 36.6 percent of all households — the highest share on record, according to the 2025 Population and Housing Census released by the Ministry of Data and Statistics in July.

Convenience stores have leaned into that shift, rolling out solo-sized meals — pizza included.

To some international visitors, the format is unfamiliar. "It is certainly new," said Yandel Martinez, 54, a tourist from New York. "The idea of a one-man pizza sold at a convenience store is something I only saw in Korea." In the United States, pizza is generally sold by the slice — cut from a large pie — rather than as an individually baked personal pizza made to order.

GS25, a major convenience chain boasting around 18,000 outlets, teamed up with GoPizza, a food truck startup, in May 2024. 

Uptake ran ahead of plan. GS25 raised its rollout target three times in 2024, from 200 stores to 250, then 300, then 1,000, as installation requests came in from franchise operators, and passed 1,000 stores that October, two months earlier than scheduled.

“GS25 has partnered with the single-serving pizza brand GoPizza to offer it as a strategic food item since May 2024,” a GS25 spokesperson told the Korea JoongAng Daily on Tuesday. “There are currently about 1,250 GoPizza specialty stores where consumers can bake single-serving pizzas to order, served within five to ten minutes.”

The range has since widened to include half-size and two-in-one pizzas and side dishes, and the share sold through delivery and pickup has climbed from about 30 percent in late 2024 to about 45 percent in August.

Specialty stores are fitted with compact ovens that bake to order. “Pizza is baked on the spot once a customer orders and served within about five minutes,” the GS25 spokesperson said. The price is roughly a third of the price of a standard pie from a franchise chain.

GS25 is not alone. 7-Eleven began selling instant pizza in the autumn of 2024, starting at 15 stores and branding the line Two-Minute Pizza the following March after the speed oven that bakes it. It sells one- to two-person pies at 7,500 to 8,500 won, and had expanded to about 120 stores as of August, with sales up 35 percent in the first half of this year.

"We are expanding around commercial districts where demand for instant food is expected to be high," a 7-Eleven spokesperson said.

Unlike GS25 and 7-Eleven, CU does not sell freshly made pizzas, but sales of its single-serving frozen pizzas have grown by 33.5 percent in 2024 and 32.6 percent in 2025 on year. Sales increased 20.9 percent in the first seven months of 2026 on year as smaller pizzas gained popularity among the growing number of one- and two-person households.

CU has put out its own frozen pizza series, which includes Gorgonzola, Quattro Cheese, Sweet Potato and Double Potato & Bacon varieties. The series has sold more than 4.3 million units since its launch. 

BY KIM MIN-YOUNG [kim.minyoung5@joongang.co.kr]