Churros Go Universal via South Korea

The history of the 'churro' is long, unclear and venerated, which gives this snack an almost mystical status. One theory suggests that its history starts in China, and that the Portuguese brought them to Europe sometime between the 1300s and 1600s. Soon after arriving in Portugal, the new pastry crossed the border into Spain.

Another theory is that churros were made by Spanish shepherds (Spanish: pastores), as the churro paste is easy to make and fry in open fire, like in the mountains where shepherds spend most of their time. It is clear though that the churro gets its name from the Churra, an Iberian breed of sheep from the region of Castilla y Leon, because of the supposed resemblance to its horns. And it's also clear that the Spanish made the snack popular, with time becoming the post-party preferred breakfast and snack for workers in Spain, often Churrerias being the first business establishments to open in the morning and the last to close at night.

Variations of churros have existed for centuries, spreading mainly across the American continent. Today, churros are making a ‘comeback’ on the other side of the world, across Asia and over the Pacific Ocean. And even though there is no question that the newfound love for churros in the far east is inspired by Spanish culture, it’s ironic that none of the brands are from Spain.

South Korean chain Street Churros first outlet in USA. SOURCE: Stree Churros Instagram

Many of the churro shops opened in South Korea reportedly did so after their founders tasted the snack in Spain. Churros are a fun and happy food, they are handy and can be eaten on-the-go. They are lighter than other traditional local snacks and they appeal to young people as they can be made to be good-looking. From the perspective of business, churros are easy to make and operate with, and it’s relatively easy to tweak the flavours of the dough, dips and toppings. In summary, they have become huge money makers.

The fried desert made its debut in South Korea about a decade ago. Since 2010, hundreds if not thousands of ‘churro shops’ have opened and can be easily found in urban hotspots across South Korea, like in popular shopping districts and college towns.

Many department stores are bringing the churro into their food businesses as well, and pop-up stands selling churros can be seen all over the streets and shopping malls. More recently, the snack has taken on local flavours and these churro shops have seen an explosive growth in numbers across Asia. Today there are many players in the ‘churro’ market – the better known being:

South Korean chain Street Churros first outlet in USA. SOURCE: Stree Churros Instagram

You can find ‘churro shops’ in South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Australia, and more recently in the US and UK. The success is a combination of the love for churros with the popularity of street-food culture in those locations. In Spain, although we love our churros, there isn’t really a street food culture like in those other countries, not yet at least. Street Churros, the world’s largest churros-café chain out of South Korea, operates or licenses hundreds of outlets in different countries in and outside of Asia. Recently, Street Churros landed in America with an outlet on wheels based out of Hollywood, CA, USA.

STREET
CHURROS:

'Our mission is to elevate street food with premium, fresh ingredients and the culinary genius of our 5 star chefs. Always handed crafted and made-to-order. We’ve taken a traditional Spanish Churro recipt and given it an audacious flair all our own'.

Looking online at the menu of Street Churros, as well as those of other 'churro' chains, the average price of churros is about $3.5 (US Dollar) per churro. These outlets sell anywhere from 700 to 2,000 churros per day, according to different reports. If we were to consider that an outlet is open for 12 hours/day, selling 700 churros in one day would equivalate to about 58 churros per hour, or about one churro per minute. A typical pop-up outlet like the one shown at the very beginning of this article, employs 3-4 people to operate. One person handles the fryer, and two-three manage preparation and sales. With this quick calculation, we can determine that selling 700 churros in a day is a feasible feat. A pop-up style shop maybe brining in about $2,500 in sales per day. A 'proper' shop like the one shown above and located in MyTOWN Shopping Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, should be bringing in a lot more in revenues at even higher margins due to automation in the process of making and selling the churros. The churro business is without a doubt a big business.

J&J Snack Foods makes the Oreo Churros since 2014.

Since 2010, major companies in the snack industry have also entered the business, launching new snacks based on the churro. The American company J&J Snack Foods, the bigger sellers of soft pretzels in the world, introduced packaged churros in 2010 under different brands. In 2014, they bought rights from Nabisco, the owners of the Oreo brand of biscuits, to create the Oreo Churro. The Oreo Churro was sold in Taco Bell establishments across the U.S. for a couple of years before Taco Bell backed off and decided to drop the product. Still, per J&J Snack Foods' financial reports (it’s a public company), the company had more than $62 Million in churros sales in 2017, more than doubling what it sold in 2010 in the same category, and sales keep increasing at a rate of about 12% per year. Their sales of pretzels in 2017 was around $180 Million, their top category in terms of sales. These sales numbers may indicate that the U.S. market is also hungry for churros.

The hundreds of outlets selling churros that were opened during the last few years across the world, the ones which continue to open all over, as well as the entrance of the packaged snacks players gives us an idea of an industry which is worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year, if not a billion-dollar industry.

And this is not including sales of complementary drink items, or the dollar value of the equipment used to make and process the churros. Spaniords have not innovated much with churros as of late, but Spanish companies continue to be main players in the manufacturing and distribution of churro making machines.

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