Mom's Touch

Mom's Touch is a South Korean fast food chain, based in Seoul, South Korea. As of 2025, the chain had over 1400 retail stores nationwide.[1] It operates restaurants in countries such as Thailand, Mongolia, and Japan.[2][3] The company's name comes from the thought that their food is made the same way a mother would make for her family.[4]

History

Mom's Touch was established in 1997 in Seoul.[5][6] After that, in order to restructure, CEO Chung Hyun-sik took over Mom's Touch in 2004 on condition that it took on a deficit and spun it off into Haimarrow Food Service.[7] It did not make operating profit from 2004 to 2010.[8] It recorded $2.6 billion (26 billion KRW) in operating profit in 2013 and made its first profit for the first time. On November 5, 2019, Haimarrow Food Service, which runs Mom's Touch, was sold to private equity fund KL & Partners for 7.3 billion won.[9] On January 1, 2018, Mom's Touch opened its first American store in Concord, California.[10][11] In 2021, they changed the company name to Mom's Touch & Co.[12]

They changed their existing red logo to a yellow logo.[13] They have operating stores in South Korea, Mongolia and Thailand, in April 2024 they were due to open the first store in Shibuya, Japan.[14]

As of August 2024, they no longer have any operation in the US after closing their City of Industry, CA location.

Products

Mom's Touch main products are fried chicken wings, chicken burgers, and hamburgers.[15] The fried chicken wings come in a variety of flavors such as spicy, chili pepper, honey, garlic, onion cheese, and curry. The chicken burger types include white garlic, chicken thigh burger, chicken filet burger, ham and cheese, jalapeño chicken burger, Cajun mango burger, and a spicy chicken burger. The hamburger types include a bulgogi burger, spicy bulgogi burger, and Jr. Burger.[16]

Mom's Touch does not use trans fat oils or monosodium glutamate in their products.

Sides available include french fries, Yakimandu, fried shrimp, salads, and chicken wraps.

Advertising

Mom's Touch advertising has predominantly relied on comedic television commercials. One commercial shows the small amount of food given by other companies then goes on to show how much bigger Mom's Touch portion sizes are.[17]

They also were seen in some webtoons, notably Lookism, where many restaurants were drawn by Park Tae-jun.[18]

References

  1. Mom's Touch expands overseas with new stores Korea JoongAng Daily, 2023-10-27, retrieved 2025-01-16^
  2. Mom's Touch finds new growth engine overseas The Korea Times, 2023-11-06, retrieved 2025-01-16^
  3. Mom's Touch – Korea's No.1 Burger & Chicken retrieved 2025-01-16^
  4. MOM'S TOUCH Brand Idea infinite.co.kr, retrieved 2022-11-21^
  5. http://biz.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2015/05/01/2015050101449.html Chosue Biz, May 2, 2015, retrieved 2015-05-07^
  6. Hyo-sik Lee. Mom's Touch to open 1st chicken burger shop in US The Korea Times, 2017-01-17, retrieved 2020-07-15^
  7. 홍기 최. https://www.newsway.co.kr/news/view?ud=2019110714353920394 뉴스웨이, 2019-11-07, retrieved 2025-01-16^
  8. CEO's Greeting haimarrow.co.kr, retrieved 2021-05-01^
  9. https://www.mk.co.kr/news/stock/view/2019/11/911512/ Maeil Business Newspaper, 2019-11-05, retrieved 2021-05-01^
  10. Yun-myung Cho. Korean burger restaurant Mom's Touch taps US market The Korea Herald, 2018-01-04, retrieved 2020-07-15^
  11. Lisa P. White. Korean fried chicken chain chooses Concord for U.S. debut East Bay Times, 2018-01-11, retrieved 2020-07-15^
  12. Seo Eun Kim. Mom's Touch History Mom's touch official homepage, official mom's touch, 2021-10-22^
  13. Seo Eun Kim. Haimarrow food service, changed BI of Mom's Touch (해마로푸드서비스, 맘스터치 BI 변경) cheon gyeong eun, 2020-11-16^
  14. Seo Eun Kim. Mom's Touch will first opened in Shibuya, Japan. 첫 해외진출 나선 맘스터치…日 도쿄 '시부야점' 연다, Newsis, 2024-03-11^
  15. http://www.momstouch.co.kr/sub/menu/menu_list.html?menu=1 www.momstouch.co.kr, retrieved 2016-07-17^
  16. http://www.momstouch.co.kr/sub/menu/menu_list.html?menu=4 www.momstouch.co.kr, retrieved 2016-07-17^
  17. momstouch LOVE. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBmKzcR6W1c December 19, 2014, retrieved 2016-07-17^
  18. https://www.vingle.net/posts/2673309 Vingle, 20 September 2019, retrieved 21 May 2023^