Every year on November 11, Korean convenience stores fill up with thin chocolate-covered biscuit sticks. That is Pepero Day, and in 2026 it lands on a Wednesday. It is not an official holiday, and its origin story is messier than the usual “Lotte invented it to sell snacks” line.

Who actually started Pepero Day?

Lotte launched Pepero in 1983, according to Korea.net. The date idea came later. The earliest media record of “Pepero Day” is a November 1996 article describing a trend among teenage girls in the Gyeongsang region: on 11/11, with four 1s lined up like sticks, they swapped Pepero and wished each other to be as slim as the snack. That account comes from the Korea Times and matches what Yonhap and SBS reported in their November 6, 2024 fact checks.

Both Korean outlets say Lotte noticed the pattern first. SBS reports that Lotte sales staff in Gyeongnam wondered why Pepero sales jumped every November and reported it to headquarters. The following year Lotte handed out free sticks in Seoul’s Gangnam and around Changwon and began using the name itself. Lotte told SBS the day was not a company creation, but both outlets also say that heavy marketing is what made it national. Yonhap’s summary is a good one: a day made by consumers and grown by the snack and retail industries.

The famous “two schoolgirls in Yeonnam-dong in 1994” story that Korea.net repeats, and the 11:11 a.m. detail in the Korea Herald, are better read as urban legends. Nobody has pinned them to a record.

One date, three different days

The part international fans rarely hear is that November 11 has two other official-ish identities. Yonhap and the Rural Development Administration both note that the government set November 11 as Farmers’ Day in 1996. Written in Chinese characters, 十 and 一 combine into 土, the character for soil, so 11/11 reads as “soil month, soil day” in the harvest-finished month. Later, in 2006, the agriculture ministry added Garaetteok Day to push rice consumption among young people, since long white rice-cake sticks look like the number 11 too.

Name	Who pushes it	What people do
Pepero Day	Consumers first, then Lotte and retailers	Swap chocolate sticks with friends, family, partners and coworkers
Garaetteok Day	Agriculture ministry and farm groups since 2006	Share long rice-cake sticks, often at schools and local events
Farmers’ Day (농업인의 날)	Government statutory day since 1996	Events honoring farmers; not a day off

Jay’s take: what it was like growing up with it

Jay, a Korean who contributes his own view to this blog, remembers the standard version: “I exchanged Pepero and chocolate.” Asked how the day feels now, he says that for the past several years the mood has been that people do not really enjoy these kinds of events anymore.

That lines up with the way Korean coverage frames the day. The commercialism debate comes up every November, and Yonhap’s fact check was written precisely because online communities keep calling it a pure marketing trick. The snack still sells, but “everyone must give something” has softened into “give one if you feel like it.”

The copycat days that never took off

Yonhap points out that the success of Pepero Day pushed confectioners and retailers to invent more of them. Samgak-gimbap Day (March 3, because of the repeated 3) and Gorae-bap Day (December 12, because a sideways 12 looks like a whale) both failed to catch on. Lotte’s own explanation for why Pepero worked is useful: Valentine’s Day and White Day are tied to couples, while Pepero Day suits any age and any relationship, so it was easy to adopt.

If you are in Korea on November 11

Expect stacked displays at convenience stores and supermarkets, and expect homemade versions at school and office desks. Lotte lists the current range on its Pepero page, including original, almond, nude chocolate and Crunky. If you want to join in, the safest move is a small box for a friend or a desk neighbor, not a big gift. Plain Pepero is the norm, and there is no obligation, which fits Jay’s point that the day is optional now.

Korean	Romanization	Meaning
빼빼로데이	ppaeppaero-dei	Pepero Day
가래떡데이	garaetteok-dei	Garaetteok (rice cake stick) Day
농업인의 날	nongeobin-ui nal	Farmers’ Day
하나 먹을래?	hana meogeullae?	Want one?

Info last checked: November 7, 2026 (sources: Korea Times, Yonhap, SBS, Korea.net, Rural Development Administration, Lotte Wellfood).

For more on how Korean holidays and customs work, see the KWaveDaily about page, or read our posts on Korean office dinners, Hangeul Day and Chuseok.

Source for the origin story: How “Pepero Day” got started in Korea (The Korea Times).