South Korea's bhc Chicken Opens First Vietnam Store, Its 10th Overseas Market

South Korean fried-chicken chain bhc opened its first Vietnam store in Ho Chi Minh City in mid-September 2026, entering the market under a master franchise agreement signed in April with Hao Open Foods, a Singapore-based food and retail operator that already runs bhc locations elsewhere in Southeast Asia and manages supermarket and food-distribution networks across the region. Vietnam is bhc's tenth overseas market, joining Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States, and brings the chain's total footprint outside South Korea to 51 stores.

bhc's development plan for Vietnam targets key cities including Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Da Nang, with a stated goal of around 50 locations over the next decade. The company said it plans to adapt parts of its menu to local tastes while keeping signature items such as its Bburinkle and Matcho King fried chicken, a strategy consistent with how other Korean F&B brands have approached entry into Vietnam in recent years.

The choice of Hao Open Foods as bhc's Vietnam operator follows the same pattern seen elsewhere in the region this year: rather than negotiating a Vietnam-only franchisee, bhc extended an agreement with a partner that already operates its brand and distribution infrastructure in neighboring Southeast Asian markets, giving the chain a single point of coordination across several countries rather than a separate relationship in each one.

For Vietnam's own outbound F&B brands, bhc's entry is a reminder that the flow of franchise capital in the region runs in both directions — inbound Korean and other Asian F&B concepts continue to see Vietnam's young, urbanizing consumer base as an attractive growth market, even as Vietnamese brands themselves build franchise footprints abroad, underscoring the two-way nature of Southeast Asia's franchise economy that Go Global Holdings positions its own portfolio brands to compete within.