Some Wednesday in mid November a coworker will set a slim red box on your desk without a word and walk off. By lunch there will be four of them. Nobody warned you because to Koreans it needs no explanation.

Last updated: October 12, 2026 (KST)

Here is the bottom line. Pepero Day is Wednesday, November 11, 2026. It is a gift-giving day, not a public holiday, built around Pepero (빼빼로), a chocolate-dipped biscuit stick that looks like the number 1. Four of them make 11/11. People hand a box to friends, partners, classmates and coworkers, and a single box costs 2,000 KRW (about $1.40) at any convenience store. Bring a few for the people you sit with, say thank you when you get one, and you have done the whole thing correctly.

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Where Pepero Day Came From

Lotte launched Choco Pepero in 1983. The holiday came later and, by Lotte Wellfood's own account, "is not a culture the company created." The story every Korean knows is that schoolgirls in Busan and the surrounding Gyeongnam region started trading Pepero on November 11 in the early-to-mid 1990s, wishing each other to grow "slim like a Pepero." Sources disagree on the exact year. Yonhap reported the custom on November 13, 1996, and Lotte put it in its marketing from 1997.

It worked. About half of Pepero's annual sales now land in the September-to-November season, and the brand sold 2,152억 KRW (about $154 million) in 2024. In 2025 it was Korea's best-selling snack at marts and convenience stores, ahead of Saewookkang shrimp crackers, with 1,456억 KRW (about $104 million) in retail sales.

Pepero also happens to share its date with three other things:

• Farmers' Day (농업인의 날) A national commemorative day since 1996. The character for soil, 土, is written with 十 and 一, so 11/11.
• Garaetteok Day (가래떡데이) The agriculture ministry has pushed long white rice cakes as a homegrown alternative to Pepero since 2006. You will see rice-cake sets next to the chocolate.
• Singles' Day (광군제) China's 11.11 shopping event, which AliExpress and 11st now run in Korea too. Our Black Friday in Korea guide covers that side of November.

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What Actually Happens on the Day

Nothing stops. Offices and schools run as normal, and Pepero Day has never been a day off. What changes is that small gifts move around all day.

At the office

The most common version is a coworker buying a handful of boxes and leaving one on each desk in their team. A manager might do the same for the whole floor. The gift is almost always the plain 2,000 KRW box, and nobody expects more. The last large office survey on this is old (Saramin, 2010), but its numbers still match what you see: about a third of workers planned to give something, they budgeted around 18,700 KRW (about $13) in total, and bosses were the most common recipient. A 2018 survey found eight in ten office workers had given a "day" gift to a colleague at some point.

The one social trap is overdoing it. Korean office columns have long made fun of the person who hands the team leader a fancy chocolate set while everyone else gets a stick box. Keep yours uniform.

At school and university

This is where the holiday is most alive. Students trade boxes between friends, decorate their own with sprinkles, and hand them to classmates they have a crush on. If you teach, expect a drawer full of them, and expect to be asked whether your country has a day like this. Exam season adds to it. The 2026 CSAT is Thursday, November 19, eight days after Pepero Day, so stores push the sticks as a good-luck gift for test takers as well. Our Suneung Day guide explains what that day does to the city.

Between couples and friends

Couples treat it as a minor Valentine's Day. Gift sets with plush toys or character goods are the standard upgrade, and this is the one case where spending more than a box is normal.

💡 TIP: Weekday Pepero Days are bigger than weekend ones because the sticks are a gift for the people around you. GS25's sales on Monday, November 11, 2024 were about 250 percent higher than on the Saturday the year before. 2026 is a Wednesday, so your office will be in full swing.

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What It Costs and Where to Buy

The single box is the whole point, and it is cheap:

• Choco Pepero, 54g 2,000 KRW (about $1.40) at convenience stores. The price rose from 1,800 KRW in February 2025 and has not changed since. Almond and the white "nude" version cost about the same.
• Convenience-store gift sets CU, GS25, 7-Eleven and emart24 roll out hundreds of character sets in the first days of November. In 2025 GS25 listed about 150 sets, 7-Eleven 116 items and CU 44 licensed items (26 of them Pokémon). Expect the 2026 lineups around November 3 or 4.
• Payment deals In 2025 GS25 ran 2+2 on Pepero and Pocky from November 1 to 10 with GS Pay, 7-Eleven gave 2+2 on card payments, and CU cut up to 60 percent through its app. The same chains announce their 2026 deals with the lineups.
• Pocky Haitai makes Glico's Japanese original in Korea and calls November 11 "Stick Day." It sits on the same shelf at the same price, and nobody minds which one you give.
• Not just snacks In 2025 Daiso sold a 5,000 KRW (about $3.60) Pepero-Day-edition skincare set, Kakao Gift ran a themed shop, and Baemin's B-mart stocked limited editions. Kakao Gift is the easy option for sending to someone in another city.

For the chains themselves, our convenience stores in Korea guide covers what else they do.

Supplies run out. In the run-up to November 11, 2025, Pepero sales at CU were up 1,453 percent against a normal week, GS25 up 412 percent and 7-Eleven 5.5 times. Buy a day or two early, not on the morning.

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A Simple Plan for Your First Pepero Day

① The day before Buy one box per person on your immediate team, plus a couple spare. For a team of eight that is about 20,000 KRW (about $14).

② In the morning Leave them on desks or hand them out when people arrive. A one-line note helps: "First Pepero Day!"

③ When you receive one Say thank you and eat it or set it aside. Reciprocating on the spot is nice, not required.

④ If you skip it That is fine too. A 2016 survey found 63 percent of office workers saw no need to observe it at work, and the holiday has had a "commercial gimmick" argument attached to it since the 1990s. Nobody will notice a newcomer who did not know.

⑤ If you teach Bring enough for the class or none at all. Partial handouts cause more drama than the gift is worth.

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Why Lotte Is Trying to Export It

If you are reading this outside Korea, you may already have seen it. Lotte Wellfood has run a global Pepero Day campaign since 2020, with Stray Kids as ambassadors since May 2025 and a contract renewed in April 2026. For 2026 the campaign opened on September 10 with a Stray Kids single titled "November 11," filmed at Gyeongbokgung and Cheonggyecheon, and the two Korean ads (one for students, one for office workers) passed 10 million views in six days. The 2025 campaign ran in 35 regions, with a Times Square festival in New York, pop-ups from Los Angeles to Manila, and a Seoul Line 2 "event train" that drew about 10,000 riders. Pepero exports hit 870억 KRW (about $62 million) in 2025, and Lotte wants to pass 1,000억 KRW in 2026.

So the box on your desk is also the front line of a Korean snack company's export plan. That does not make the gesture less warm. It just explains why your coworkers find it so natural.

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There is a reason Koreans keep inventing "days" like this one, and it is the same reason the office coffee run exists. Small, equal, low-stakes gestures are how a group says it is a group. On November 11, a 2,000 KRW box is the price of admission. Pay it once and you will find yourself buying the sticks the next year without being told.

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