Koreans have been eating their skincare for years. The rest of the world is just catching up, and the reason Korea is positioned to supply that demand is its production base. Backed by a large home market, it exported a record $901M in 2024.
Korea's health functional food market, the MFDS-certified category, was worth an estimated KRW 5.96 trillion in 2025, according to the Korea Health Functional Food Association. The market has more than doubled over the past decade. After declining from its 2022 peak, it showed a modest recovery in 2025, growing 0.2% year on year.
In Korea, a health functional food must use ingredients and claims recognized by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS). In the US, the FDA does not approve dietary supplements before they are sold.
The gummy vitamin market is forecast to grow about 9.5% a year from 2026 to 2033, according to SNS Insider.
There are early signs of pull. Olive Young's US buyers say health supplements are the next category after cosmetics, a Meritz Securities analyst wrote in a report cited by Seoul Economic Daily in May 2026.
The supply chains built in Korean functional food today will determine who leads the category. Scale, formulation capability, and QA are already in place; the open question is which buyers lock in capacity before the shelf fills.
Products formulated for a specific health benefit and regulated as functional food in Korea, including red ginseng, collagen, probiotics, and vitamin formats such as capsules, powders, sticks, and gummies.
The domestic market more than doubled over the past decade, building manufacturing scale across capsules, powders, sticks, and gummies.
Gummies. The gummy vitamin market is forecast to grow about 9.5% a year from 2026 to 2033, per SNS Insider.
