Mom’s Touch unveils second Chef Hudukjuk menu collection
On October 21, 2026, Mom’s Touch held a media preview at its Seoul headquarters to unveil its second “Chef Hudukjuk Collection,” featuring three burgers and one chicken menu items priced and scaled for rollout across approximately 1,490 stores nationwide starting October 22, tnnews.co.kr reported.
Menus and Recipes Built Over Six Months
The second collection follows a prior release from March 2026. The new lineup pairs Chef Hudukjuk’s recipes with Mom’s Touch Research and Development operations through six months of formulation work. The menu comprises the “Kung Pao Thigh Burger,” featuring Kung Pao sauce on a thigh patty alongside a cashew and vegetable patty; the “XO Tong-Mozzarella Shrimp Burger,” pairing a shrimp patty and whole mozzarella patty with two types of XO sauce and diced gungchae; the “XO Shrimp Thigh Plex Burger,” combining a thigh patty and a shrimp patty under XO mayo sauce; and the “XO Sichuan Big Thigh Boneless Chicken,” served with an XO Sichuan crumble designed to resist sogginess during delivery. The second collection was planned on the basis of the first collection’s results, moving closer to authentic Chinese culinary depth by putting the heavy umami of XO sauce and the sweet and spicy kick of Kung Pao sauce front and center, whereas the first release tested the potential by adding Chinese touches to familiar burgers and chicken. All three burgers pair two different patties to boost the signature volume of Mom’s Touch. Kim Eun-young, head of the corporate relations group at Mom’s Touch & Company, explained at the event: When we tested the first time, we cautiously tested whether we could actually put Chinese flavors into burgers and chicken, but after personally experiencing the enthusiastic response from consumers, you implemented a deeper level of Chinese cuisine for the second time.
The Kung Pao sauce is named after the representative Sichuan stir-fry dish Gongbao, featuring a cashew and vegetable patty made of peppers, green onions, and cashews placed on top of a juicy thigh patty. The cashew and vegetable patty had lower binding strength than meat and was difficult to keep crispy, requiring multiple tests to shape. The XO Tong-Mozzarella Shrimp Burger pairs a shrimp patty with a whole mozzarella cheese patty and adds XO glaze sauce and XO mayo sauce, incorporating diced gungchae for a crunchy texture against the heavy umami. Among the lineup, the menu with the largest volume is the “XO Shrimp Thigh Plex Burger,” which combines a thick thigh patty and a moist shrimp patty finished with the chef’s sauce, replacing pickle slices with diced gungchae. The “XO Sichuan Big Thigh Boneless Chicken” consists of 100% chicken thigh boneless pieces topped with an XO Sichuan crumble containing the umami of XO sauce and the tingling spice of Sichuan pepper, along with garlic and breadcrumbs for crispiness. While stores toss and serve the crumble immediately, delivery orders are provided with separately packaged crumbles so customers can adjust the amount and change the texture to their liking during delivery times lasting 30 to 60 minutes.
Celebrity Chef Collaborations Drive Record Sales Growth
The expansion arrives after strong financial returns from earlier celebrity and chef collaborations. According to tnnews.co.kr, the first Chef Hudukjuk collection launched on March 12, 2026, generating the highest first-week sales figures for any new product in the brand’s history and lifting customer counts and total sales by 21 percent over a two-month window. Shrimp burger sales reached 1.8 times their prior-year levels between March and August 2026. Prior projects under the same strategy yielded separate gains: the Edward Lee Chef Collection surpassed six million sales in ten months following a February 2025 release, pushing annual chicken sales up by 53.2 percent and beef burger sales up by 60.7 percent, while Kim Poong’s April 2026 menu boosted beef burger sales by 80 percent within a single month. The collaborations brought existing customers and celebrity fandoms to stores, broadening sales evenly across beef burgers, shrimp burgers, and chicken beyond the concentration on the Thigh Burger, thereby strengthening the QSR platform model where Mom’s Touch sells burgers, chicken, and pizza together. Kim noted: As we have steadily increased the number of stores over the past six years, the average sales per franchise have also grown together. We believe that the chef collection is producing positive effects in that we have created a single platform where the headquarters and franchises can grow together.
Corporate Cost Absorption and Store Standardization
Mom’s Touch and Company absorbed all promotional, advertising, intellectual property, and logistical expenses for the collaboration, leaving franchise operators free from upfront costs while intellectual property rights remain with the corporate entity. Standardization of preparation times, moisture levels in vegetables, and cooking temperatures took place at the R&D center completed in May 2026 to ensure uniform execution across nearly 1,500 franchise locations. All products released after the completion of the center undergo hundreds or thousands of tests there before entering the mass production line. Completed manuals are shared through training for all franchises prior to launch, and post-launch taste deviations are managed through store monitoring. To celebrate the launch, Mom’s Touch is offering a 3,500-won discount coupon on its official app through October 25 to the first 5,000 people daily for the “Hudukjuk XO Kung Pao Set,” which includes the Kung Pao Thigh Burger, regular XO Sichuan Big Thigh Boneless Chicken, and a cola.
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