[News Today] Ggulddeok the next hot K-food

[LEAD]
Have you ever thought about pouring milk over rice cake? To Koreans like myself, it's a combination that doesn't feel quite right. But this unexpected pairing is catching on overseas, and now, it's making its way back home. Following ramyeon and frozen gimbap, tteok is making its mark abroad, this time as a Korean dessert.

[REPORT]
Milk is poured into a bowl of three-colored ggulddeok or honey rice cake.

Milk goes well with the ggulddeok containing sweet sesame seed filling.

Overseas social media users created so-called 'ggultteok cereal' memes by posting videos of eating the Korean rice snack with milk like cereal.

Even foreigners not used to rice cakes find it interesting.

Mitesh Jamnadas / Dutch Food Company Official
It's very good. It's a very different concept, a very different flavor. I'm not used to that, but it's very good.

Korea now exports a wider variety of rice cakes, from Koreans' favorite snack ddeokbokki to ggulddeok.

Even plain ddeok is shaped into flowers or transformed into toppings for fruit punch or dessert.

New technology keeps the flavor and prevents hardening even after freezing, opening up new markets for various rice cakes.

Yun Ji-yeong / Ddeok production firm
The rice cakes stay chewy longer at room temperature and can be frozen for up to a year, making them easier to export.

With rice cakes added to frozen gimbap, processed rice food exports have quadrupled in seven years.

Kim Dong-hyeon / Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
Steady export growth is expected to boost domestic rice consumption and help stabilize supply and demand.

Processed rice foods had the highest export growth rate among agricultural products last year.