The company’s current headquarters are at 3 Hangang-daero 72-gil, Yongsan-gu, Seoul.

Foundation

HAITAI’s history begins immediately after the end of Japanese colonial rule in Korea. Haitai Confectionery Company was established on October 1, 1945, making it one of the early Korean food companies founded with domestic capital. Its earliest products included candy and caramel.

The company’s early growth was closely connected with the development of Korea’s modern food-manufacturing industry. In 1947, Haitai received a Good Product Award at a domestic product exhibition for its wafers and jelly products, according to the company’s own history.

During the following decades, HAITAI expanded from simple confectionery into biscuits, chocolate, chewing gum, snacks, ice cream and other food categories.

1960s–1980s: industrial expansion

The company underwent substantial industrialization during the 1960s and 1970s.

Among the milestones recorded by HAITAI are:

• 1960: Haitai Confectionery Company was renamed Haitai Confectionery Industrial Co.
• 1961: Haitai Industrial was absorbed and manufacturing facilities were reorganized.
• 1967: A biscuit factory and a complete chocolate-production line were established.
• 1972: The company became publicly listed.
• 1974: Haitai expanded its ice-cream manufacturing operations.
• 1976: A large-scale chewing-gum factory was completed.
• 1984: The Gwangju factory was completed.
• 1987: The corporate name was changed from Haitai Confectionery Industrial Co. to Haitai Confectionery Co.

This period helped establish HAITAI as a household name rather than simply a manufacturer.

One of HAITAI’s biggest strengths is its unusually long-lived product portfolio. Several products introduced decades ago remain part of the company’s current lineup.

Yeonyanggang

Yeonyanggang (연양갱) is one of HAITAI’s oldest products, dating to 1945. It is a traditional sweet bean-based confectionery and has become strongly associated with nostalgia and older generations of Korean consumers.

HAITAI currently identifies Yeonyanggang as one of its heritage brands and emphasizes its connection with the company’s founding era.

Ace

Ace (에이스) was introduced in 1974 and is a light, crisp cracker. It became a staple Korean snack and remains one of HAITAI’s established best-selling products.

Matdongsan

Matdongsan (맛동산) debuted in 1975. It is a sweet, crunchy snack associated with peanuts and syrup coating and is one of HAITAI’s best-known long-running products.

HomeRun Ball

HomeRun Ball (홈런볼) was introduced in 1981. The product consists of small, ball-shaped choux pastries filled with chocolate cream. Its baseball-inspired name and shape helped give it a distinctive identity in the Korean snack market.

Oh! Yes

Oh! Yes (오예스) was introduced in 1984. It is a chocolate-coated snack cake with a soft cake interior and cream filling. It became one of HAITAI’s representative cake products and remains prominently featured by the company.

Free Time

Free Time (자유시간) is HAITAI’s chocolate-bar brand. The company describes it as a leading chocolate-bar brand in South Korea, combining nougat and caramel with chocolate.

Perhaps the most internationally recognizable modern HAITAI product is Honey Butter Chip (허니버터칩).

Launched in August 2014, Honey Butter Chip combined potato chips with a sweet-and-savory flavor profile based on honey and butter. According to HAITAI, the product became an overnight sensation in South Korea, producing extraordinary demand and frequent shortages at retailers.

The popularity became known as the “Honey Butter Chip craze.” Consumers reportedly lined up to purchase the chips, while retailers experienced repeated sell-outs.

The success was significant enough to influence the broader Korean snack industry, with competing companies subsequently introducing their own honey-butter-flavored products.

HAITAI says Honey Butter Chip remains its No. 1 export item, with exports to more than 20 countries. The company reports Korean sales of approximately KRW 5.3 billion in 2025 for the product.

Although HAITAI is fundamentally a Korean brand, its products have a substantial international presence.

The company says it currently exports to more than 60 countries, spanning markets in Asia, North America, the Middle East and elsewhere.

Internationally, HAITAI products are often positioned as Korean snacks, benefiting from the growing global interest in Korean food and popular culture.

Among the products that have gained international recognition are:

• Honey Butter Chip
• HomeRun Ball
• Oh! Yes
• Ace
• Matdongsan
• Free Time
• various Korean-style biscuits and snack products

The Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety has also listed HAITAI’s export categories as including biscuits, crackers, snacks, gum, candy, ice cream and dumplings, with export destinations including China, Hong Kong, Japan, the United States, Taiwan, Thailand, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and India.

HAITAI went through an important restructuring period around the beginning of the 21st century.

In 2001, the company attracted overseas investment and underwent a corporate restructuring. Its history records the completion of foreign investment and a transition toward a new corporate structure.

The company subsequently became associated with Crown Confectionery. Crown’s corporate history records the acquisition of Haitai Confectionery & Foods in January 2005.

This eventually led to the broader Crown-Haitai corporate structure.

HAITAI nevertheless retained its own brand identity and continues to operate under the Haitai Confectionery & Foods name.

HAITAI has also used joint ventures and partnerships to expand its technological and product capabilities.

Notable relationships include partnerships with Japanese confectionery and snack companies:

Calbee

HAITAI established a joint venture with Calbee, the major Japanese snack manufacturer. The relationship became particularly important in potato-snack manufacturing. HAITAI’s corporate history records the establishment of the Haitai-Calbee joint venture in 2011.

Glico

HAITAI also established a joint venture with Glico in the early 2010s. The company’s history lists the Haitai-Glico joint venture among its major developments.

These relationships illustrate HAITAI’s strategy of combining its established Korean distribution network with Japanese food-manufacturing expertise.

HAITAI operates a network of production facilities in South Korea.

Its current network information identifies facilities in:

• Asan — biscuits, including HomeRun Ball, Ace and French Pie
• Cheongju — biscuits and snacks
• Cheonan — chocolate and Pocky-related products
• Daejeon — cakes and pies, including Oh! Yes
• Gwangju — candy and other products

The company also maintains a research laboratory focused on food technology, product development and manufacturing processes. HAITAI says its R&D activities include development of new technologies, overseas research, professional training and cooperation with outside institutions.

A newer Asan plant was completed in 2022, with HAITAI highlighting it as an environmentally friendly manufacturing facility.

The name “Haitai” (해태) has a cultural origin that predates the company.

According to HAITAI’s official explanation, the name derives from the mythical East Asian creature known in Korean as haetae and in Chinese tradition as haechi. The creature is traditionally depicted as an animal with a horn and is associated with distinguishing right from wrong and with justice.

The company adopted this cultural symbol as part of its identity.

The brand’s visual identity has historically used a distinctive HAITAI Red. The company’s official brand information identifies the principal color as Pantone 213C, with RGB values of 226/23/119. HAITAI says the color represents its history, tradition and enthusiasm for bringing enjoyment to customers.

HAITAI’s modern portfolio is broader than simply “Korean chips.”

Its major categories include:

Biscuits and crackers

• Ace
• French Pie
• Sand Ace
• other biscuit products

Snack foods

• Honey Butter Chip
• Matdongsan
• Baked Potato
• various corn, potato and Korean-flavored snacks

Chocolate

• Free Time
• chocolate confectionery
• chocolate-coated snacks

Snack cakes

• Oh! Yes
• HomeRun Ball
• other cake and pie products

Candy and gum

HAITAI has historically manufactured a wide range of candies and chewing gums.

Frozen foods

The company also has a frozen-food business, including dumpling products. Its current corporate materials describe its principal business as dry confectionery and frozen foods.

HAITAI is more than a conventional packaged-food manufacturer in South Korea. Its longevity has made many of its products part of everyday Korean food culture.

Products such as Yeonyanggang, Ace, Matdongsan, HomeRun Ball and Oh! Yes have survived across multiple generations. Consequently, the HAITAI name is often associated with nostalgia, childhood snacks and familiar Korean convenience-store and supermarket foods.

Its product strategy has generally combined two approaches:

1. Maintaining heritage products that consumers already recognize.
2. Creating new products and flavors designed to generate contemporary trends.

Honey Butter Chip is perhaps the clearest example of the second strategy.

The historical dates above are based primarily on HAITAI’s own corporate chronology and current product information.

As of 2026, HAITAI remains one of South Korea’s established confectionery companies. Its current corporate materials describe it as one of the top three confectionery companies in Korea, with approximately 17% market share in the referenced company profile. The same 2026 corporate material identifies seven plants, 58 sales offices and one distribution center.

The company continues to emphasize both its heritage products and new product development. Its current website highlights products such as HomeRun Ball, Oh! Yes and Ace, while also promoting new products, seasonal editions and its “Honey Story” product-development program.

In other words, modern HAITAI occupies an interesting position: a traditional Korean food brand with products that date back to the 1940s–1980s, combined with a contemporary snack business capable of creating viral products such as Honey Butter Chip.

HAITAI is a historic South Korean confectionery and food company founded in 1945, best known for generations of Korean snack brands—including Ace, Matdongsan, HomeRun Ball, Oh! Yes and Honey Butter Chip—and today operates as part of the Crown-Haitai business group with an expanding international presence.