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We released an additional smaller 15 oz jar kimchi this past February. It wasn’t the sales data or the pricing of the larger jar that led to this decision.

The large jar simply did not fit the shelves.

When we initially received an inquiry from Bi-Rite Markets here in SF whether we would consider a smaller jar (they loved the flavor and product but could not find a way to fit our original jars into their retail fridge), we kindly responded with a “it’s possible” but deep down we did not want to. More than the thought of chopping the cabbage to fit the kimchi into the smaller jars, we were hung up on the fact that someone else was suggesting/telling us to change our product offering.

In some ways maybe it was something we just got used to, defying the narrative that things “don’t fit”, the desire to stand out, and the fear that something can be stripped from us…if we don’t cling onto it for dear life. But after a few spirited conversations, we collectively had an epiphany. Bi-Rite’s enthusiasm for stocking the product should be a reason for celebration and a testament to the product’s excellence. It was a new challenge to make the smaller 15oz kimchi as tasty as the 28oz and for us to feel extremely proud of the resulting product.

Today, the 15oz and 28oz are both thriving. Some retail accounts carry the 28oz, some carry the 15oz, and some carry both. And we’re realizing through the consumption of our end customers that there’s a purpose for both. It’s been great to see folks grab the larger jar for their dinners/entertaining and take the smaller jars to parks/picnics (to eat right out of the jar!).

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Availability

The first thought is, maybe it’s not readily available. Take out Korean/Asian markets such as H-Mart and it’s nearly impossible to find dwenjang in any other larger grocery store. Whole Foods? Their Asian section and Korean offering is pretty eclectic (marinade rubs, gochujang, Korean-inspired aiolis, gochugaru, kimchi paste), but have never seen dwenjang. But, can’t say it’s just lack of availability. Nowadays, so many people shop online and if you were really seeking dwenjang — you’d definitely be able to find it.

Not enough applications/visibility on menus?

Since dwenjang is hard to find in grocery stores, maybe the chefs around the world (or on TikTok) are highlighting this ingredient in their dishes? Not quite. It’s still gochujang this, gochujang that. Gochujang cookies, gochujang pizza, gochujang mayo. Again, the rise of gochujang in American food culture is for another time, but why can’t dwenjang get the same love? Of course it goes back to the first point of lack of availability/information on the product, which then spills over into restaurant menus. But chojang and ssamjang are also not on menus (and also less extensive in applications), but are selling better than dwenjang. Fine, maybe the Queens ssam jang is really good (;P) but according to K-Food Trade, ssam jang exports to the US are nearly double the dwenjang exports.

Flavor too strong?

Then maybe it’s the flavor? Dwenjang is definitely punchy, both in taste and smell. I mean there are tall tales we heard growing up of neighbors calling the cops on the Korean family next door fermenting dwenjang in their backyard because they suspected foul play (If you think dwenjang is bad, then don’t go near cheongguk jang). But from a completely unbiased yet of course biased perspective, dwenjang’s flavor is the best. So rich and umami-filled: a warm, deeeeep embrace.

So in conclusion, it could be all of these or none of these. (Would love to hear your thoughts!) It could merely be that gochujang is an anomaly and the one hit wonder and that it’ll take a few more decades for dwenjang to have the same fandom. Or maybe it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy — a perpetuated belief that eaters won’t enjoy dwenjang (or as much as they enjoy miso). So, even the way we describe dwenjang is Korean “miso” or even further, we recently saw a bottle of gochujang described as "spicy miso.”

We’re always excited to daily play a small role in bringing people one step closer to dwenjang through Queens. Or oh man, sometimes going for the hail mary. Still vividly remember the look on the dishwasher’s face when we were doing a pop-up at Birba in 2019 and we decided to have cheongguk jang on the menu. But all the adventurous souls who ordered it, absolutely loved it, instantly becoming dwenjang fans longing for more.

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Here are some of our best finds, along with the dried pollack, from our recent trip to the motherland.

Let’s start with the dried pollack. We had pinned a dried pollack soup restaurant that we were excited to check out. We rented a car and made the drive to Inje, a small mountainous city three hours east of Seoul. The food was out of this world. So humble and simple but so good. A set menu for about $12/pp comes with the milkiest and richest hwangtae guk (dried pollack soup) and an assortment of namuls — all dressed to perfection. Before we could even finish the meal, we were grabbing for the dried pollack that they were selling retail.

On our way back to Seoul, we made a detour through Jeongseon to check out the famous sijang (market) there. After giving in to a pancake platter, we secured the goods. Some of the best dried chwi namul that we’ve ever picked up in Korea. Can’t wait to cook with them!

Back in Seoul, we had to stop by one of our favorite coffee shops, Dark Edition in the Yeonhui-Dong neighborhood. Run by the sweetest couple, Dark Edition roasts and pours some of the best coffee (in the country? in the world??). Their attention to detail and ability to extract flavors from the beans is second to none. It was extra special to see our friends Sumin from Wildduck Canteen (thanks for the coffee!) and Christine from back home there. We brought back some beans and now to try to brew coffee to taste half as good….

While in the Yeonhui neighborhood, we dropped by a vinyl shop that we had discovered last year, Papa Yeonhui’s (btw it wasn’t called Papa Yeonhui’s last year but he upgraded a bit with an Instagram handle too). Luckily they were open as they don’t normally post their hours; when we walked in and asked the older gentlemen what his hours were, he said: “when I feel like opening” lol. To our surprise, he looked at us and said “I remember you! Your voices! From America right?” It was so sweet. There was a Light and Salt (Korean band) LP that we were eyeing but when he told us it was 120 thousand won, (~$90 USD), we had to politely decline. As we were heading out, he wanted to play us a song from the LP, which just happened to be the perfect soundtrack to the pitter patter of the rain outside. The owner was so happy that we came to visit him that he gifted us with an Eaktay Ahn vinyl. Again, so sweet.

In the neighboring Yeonnam-Dong, our friend told us about a vintage second hand shop called Upstairs. Mostly Japanese vintage but great pieces at good prices. You’ll find a lot of vintage clothing shops in Seoul, but Upstairs stands out not only for the curation but also for how well the pieces are taken care of. We picked up some cheap vintage Kapital and Beams, thumbs up!

Our friends Seungmin and Yoonju introduced us to Sinsa Market near the Apgujeong area in Gangnam. It’s an older market in the city located inside one of the few remaining older apartment complexes in Gangnam. There’s a famous tteokbokki restaurant (Ssang doong-ee-neh) inside, but we make the trek there to grab some of the best sesame and perilla oil. All guk-san (domestic) seeds and pressed there on the spot. The owner knows the drill for us travelers worried about oil leaking all over our luggage, and packs the bottles in fortified, cushioned bubble wrap.

Of course a trip to Seoul wouldn’t be complete without ducking into D&Department in Hannam-dong. Yes, it’s a bit pricey for second-hand plateware, but it’s fun to dig through their curation of the best creators and artisans across the country. What do you think of this plate we picked up?

Up closer to the palace, we also stopped by a couple of other great shops: Someone Life and Curriculum. Our friends Sangsoon and Hyori had a great rug in their house and told us they picked it up at Someone Life. Unfortunately, most of their rugs were out of stock since they were doing a popup at The Hyundai, but we did pick up this great seat cushion that fits perfectly in our place!

Curriculum is a new bookstore/select shop started by Sunhee Oh, someone we’ve known from a while back when we worked with her to bring in Anju Banju, a book that she helped publish. Curriculum had a great selection of Korean cookbooks, so we picked up a few! Time to brush up on our Korean though…

Time to start cooking now…stay tuned on the stack for some new restaurant discoveries in Seoul!

Step one: recognize the problem(s)
These are some of the issues and weaknesses that we identified about the existing website.
1. It’s still unclear what we are: the sheer confusion…terrible! I know. We’re a CPG food brand selling Korean American pantry ingredients and so, so many people were still confused about what we do and/or what we make. “Are you still a restaurant? Where is the shop now? Where can I buy your products?”
2. You can’t easily find our products from the home page: or maybe any page for that matter, resulting in a poor shopping experience
3. There isn’t enough substantial information to support and build knowledge around our brand, our products, our core values, so forth: …the spiraling confusion continues
4. There are missed opportunities for people to engage with Queens’ content: there isn’t much to discover or consume throughout the website to increase engagement or understanding, creating a disconnect between the brand ethos and quality of products that we make with the digital experience
5. The brand elements, our physical design, custom packaging, custom printed labels, and unique aesthetic were incongruent with the language and style that was being communicated digitally: the collective branded experience needed consistency

Step two: beef up the content and organize it appropriately
This directly correlated to aforementioned issues 2,3, and 4. Queens is built on our Korean American heritage, our relationship with local farmers and producers, and the social and environmental aspects of food. But it was hard to recognize those things within the minimal copywriting and information especially on our individual product pages. Meanwhile, customers were browsing our products but still unsure of what they were exactly, how they might taste, how to cook with them, etc.

So we expanded on those descriptions, adding Flavor Notes and Creative Uses to help guide shoppers, plus a Recipe index to fuel culinary ideas and implementation. We simplified our About Us to something more short and sweet and current. The goal is to continue to grow the archive of recipes, add more unique content around the stories of the farmers that we work with, and include behind-the-scenes videos of our small-batch production process. Aka, more effective brand education.

Step three: establish your infrastructure and maximize its capabilities
The truth is, if you don’t know how to build/code a website yourself (especially one that can integrate payment processing, shipping, and inventory management), and if you don’t know someone who may be willing to pro-bono the work, then you’ve got to work with a template.

There are clear limitations to working with a built-in layout , even if you do shell out a bit of $ for a jazzier one. That being said, once we singled out the major problems of the existing website (step one) and determined what more/new information, content, and visual aids should be included to help distinguish and clearly spell out what the brand is all about (step two), choosing the right template that could support those needs was fairly easy and quick. We didn’t have to do much searching because all we were looking for was a clean, intuitive, straightforward layout that could play a supporting role in showcasing what was really important: the products, the copy, the content, and the visuals.

On a side note: there was some general confusion on how to embellish here and there with a bit of code. Turns out, knowing how to add some pixelated glitter across the screen and embed a song into your Xanga doesn’t really mean anything when it comes to building a shop-able website…

Step four: hone in on the visual language
Our branding, packaging, labels, overall design aesthetic is seemingly basic, but actually very nuanced and intentional in its design details (a deep dive for another time). It definitely isn’t perfect and is an endless work-in-progress, as are all great things imo. It is, however, absolutely meant to be unconventional, unassuming, and simple, opting for clarity and practicality and well…for the packaging to be secondary to the main thing itself, which is the food.

The typeface that we predominately use on our labels is Arial. The website is built using Arial. A textbook font…Our labels are always colorful, so we knew the website should be simple in color tone: white and black. It’s unconventional, but essentially the homepage is now the main shop page. A short scroll and you can find all of our Queens products on one page without having to bounce around different links. Recipes and collaborations, too. The goal: eliminate any barriers to discovery.

There’s still some troubleshooting that needs to be done, fixes and improvements, refining and editing. We will continue to iterate and work on these things and the brand experience, but for now we hope this new website feels more streamlined and focused, and at the very least, helps enable Queens to be a brand that keeps growing, both on the web and on pantry shelves, in fridges, and cupboards.

More how-tos and facelifts, and many more stories about the journey to come. Our current project is redesigning our 1, 2, and 3-pack product boxes with a spankin’ new custom design. Another wonderful self-directed project that has helped me form new wrinkles in my brain.

Signing off with a favorite makeover moment. Gracie Lou Freebush<3

We hope to add more once we’re out there again this year. OR maybe you’ll see us at one of these spots on the list if you happen to be out there :) Click on the map below to get access to our pinned spots.

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The service is impeccable. Touch points that aren’t even expected, which make them all the more special: Tsingtaos poured table side, plates changed to prepare for mains, and hot water refilled in teapots at the blink of an eye.

But what makes this place so consistent and special is Ken, the son of one of the owners and the captain of the HKLB ship. Best way to describe Ken? There’s no way to put it in words but you’ll know right away who he is when you’re there. He’s honestly so nice and hospitable that we initially didn’t think it was real. But every single visit, rain or shine, it’s been the same uplifting energy (or Ken-ergy as we like to call it now) from the delightful “right aways!” when you order to the “enjoy!” when he brings out the food. Ken is truly a reminder to be kind, to love what you do, and that service that stems from a place of love and kindness truly translates.

We can go on forever about our love affair with HKLB but go see and try it for yourself (if you haven’t already)!

ps. everything is good but wanted to share some dishes we’ve been recently really into:

mapo tofu - (not on lunch menu but you can still order it!

chilean sea bass with black bean sauce

Salt and pepper prawns (shell on) - just to show we’re not lying about the size

(hehe. 2016 :P)

We attended one of the Scribe release dinners back in 2016 and just remember how special the night was. Plus, an added bonus, we got seated next to two lovely people, at the time whom we didn’t know but now are two of our best buds (shout out Emma and Charlie of Dewey’s Wines!). All of this was of course before Queens was even a thing and before we even fathomed doing any type of food enterprise. Yet it was just so dreamy, which naturally led us to dream: how amazing would it be to cook Korean food up here at Scribe one day. Probably…most likely, not possible… right?

Fast forward 8+ years. Last month, we had the opportunity to collaborate on a release dinner with our dear friends at Scribe (Thank you Kelly, Penelope, Angelyne, Andrew, Adam, and the entire crew). It was such a fun night. People definitely left with full stomachs and hopefully also full hearts. For us, after returning to the kitchen after walking around the guest table with a plate of dinosaur sized Korean short ribs, we took a step back and realized: wow this is what we had dreamed of.

Cheers to more dreaming and excited for what is out there 8 years from now. For us, and for all of you as well!

The produce report gets a bit funny t…

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