The LTO
TOUS les JOURS, the Korean bakery café chain owned by CJ Foodville, is rolling out the Gochujang Caramel Latte systemwide in partnership with oatmilk brand Oatly through November 30 at participating locations across its 200-plus U.S. unit footprint. The limited-time beverage — available hot or iced — layers espresso and Oatly Barista Edition with a sweet-and-spicy gochujang caramel syrup, vanilla oat cold foam, and Lotus Biscoff cookie crumbles. For operators tracking fall daypart trends in the bakery-café segment, the collaboration positions TOUS les JOURS squarely in the premium, culturally differentiated corner of the crowded specialty coffee market.
Concept Origins
The drink traces back to Café Yaeji, a New York pop-up developed by Oatly in partnership with Brooklyn-based Korean-American artist and DJ Yaeji, which introduced an iced gochujang latte as a vehicle for exploring Korean café culture. TOUS les JOURS adapted the format with a caramel-forward build suited for its existing bakery-café menu architecture and national distribution footprint. "With Oatly, we're taking a familiar Korean ingredient in an unexpected direction, pairing gochujang with caramel and coffee," said Max Gallegos, Chief Marketing Officer of TOUS les JOURS. Michael Lee, EVP and Executive Creative Director, North America at Oatly, framed the rollout as a direct scale-up of the pop-up proof of concept: "TOUS les JOURS gives us the chance to take that idea from one weekend in New York to people across the country."
Activation and Context
To support the launch, five locations — Cerritos, Brea, La Habra, Union St., and Madison Square Park — will distribute an exclusive Oatly x TOUS les JOURS keychain with purchase while supplies last. A companion Instagram sweepstakes, running October 1 through November 15 under the hashtag #SipIfYouDare, offers five $100 gift cards to drive social engagement and trial. The LTO fits into a broader brand strategy that has leaned into Korean cultural marketing: the chain served as the Official Bakery Café Sponsor of BTS THE CITY ARIRANG NEW YORK and activated at KCON LA 2026 earlier this year. Globally, TOUS les JOURS operates more than 1,750 locations, giving CJ Foodville significant back-of-house R&D scale to pilot flavor innovation for the U.S. market. In the specialty coffee segment, co-branded ingredient partnerships — particularly those anchored around recognizable alternative-dairy platforms like Oatly — have become a reliable LTO lever for independent-leaning chains seeking to differentiate on flavor identity without the capital intensity of a full menu overhaul. The gochujang application is a notable step beyond the matcha and ube wave that defined Korean-inspired café menus in recent years, signaling a willingness among operators to push fermented and savory flavor profiles into the beverage daypart. For foodservice suppliers and co-manufacturers tracking LTO beverage innovation, the sweet-and-spicy build — combining a functional flavor ingredient with an established oat-based dairy alternative — reflects a broader trade-up dynamic in premium café beverages.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
