EXCLUSIVE: Roy Choi Turns A Lifetime Of Snack Obsession Into A Target Collection

Roy Choi’s new Good & Gather snack collection at Target has hit shelves, and it doesn’t just represent another celebrity food collaboration. For Choi, it’s a full-circle moment years in the making.

Long before Kogi, before television appearances, and before becoming one of the country’s most influential chefs, Choi was just another kid wandering the aisles of Target.

“I would spend hours in the store because when I didn’t have shit to do, all I would do is go to Target and eat the Pizza Hut and get an Icee and just hang out in the store,” Choi told Foodbeast. “I would do two things by myself, basically watch matinees and hang out in Target.”

That history made the call from Target feel especially meaningful.

“I’ve never had a national line before,” Choi said. “I’ve done a lot of regional stuff. I’m a hometown dude. So to get this call was kind of out of the blue and really inspiring and exciting.”

The collaboration eventually evolved into an 11-item collection for Target’s Good & Gather brand featuring everything from food truck-shaped gummies and cake pops to popcorn, pork rinds, yuca chips, meat sticks, trail mix, and veggie straws.

For Choi, snacks felt like the most authentic lane possible.

“I grew up in a liquor store, restaurant. I’m a snack kid,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t come out with a frozen food line. I didn’t come out with a sauce line. For me, my lane on this collaboration was a snack thing because I felt like that was the most honest and authentic concept that I could represent.”

The project may look effortless on shelves, but it took nearly two years to bring to life.

“A lot of creative projects, people don’t realize, whether it’s a product line or a film or even a restaurant, they’re usually two to three years out,” Choi explained. “You have to see the future at the same time you’re fully immersed in the present.”

The first conversations started nearly two years ago, with deeper product development beginning shortly after. Choi worked closely with Target’s culinary teams, regularly flying to Minneapolis to taste products, review branding, and refine flavors.

And refine them he did.

“I agonize over everything,” Choi said.

That scrutiny ultimately led him to shrink the collection rather than expand it.

Initially, Choi envisioned a much larger lineup with multiple flavor variations for each category. Instead, he narrowed the field to the products he felt most confident about.

“The whole product line was developed as a series,” he said. “If people bought the whole line and put it on their table for the Super Bowl or movie night or whatever, that it could all make sense together.”

That idea of gathering around food became one of the guiding principles behind the project.

“If you threw a party and just had all of this stuff on the table and nothing else, would people be happy?” Choi said. “That was the whole intent.”

While the collection draws from Choi’s culinary perspective, he pushes back on describing it strictly through a Korean-American lens.

“It’s more like Kogi,” he said. “It’s LA Koreatown.”

Kogi, the food truck that helped redefine modern street food by fusing Korean barbecue and Mexican flavors, has always been as much about Los Angeles as it is about any single cuisine.

That distinction shows up throughout the lineup. Chili lime appears across several products, reflecting influences from both Asian and Latino food cultures that have long existed side-by-side throughout Los Angeles.

“I think once it’s been introduced, it’s hard to pull it back now,” Choi said of chili lime’s popularity. “If you look at where it comes from, from Latin culture, Asian culture, these aren’t trends in our culture. These are flavors that are on our table at all times.”

Pineapple also appears throughout the collection, something Choi says was intentional.

“Fruit carts, fruit platters, fruit as dessert — that’s a huge part of both cultures,” he said. “The pineapple is the ultimate hospitality fruit. It welcomes people in.”

Then there are the gummies.

The food truck-shaped gummies may be one of the most personal products in the collection, serving as both a tribute to Choi’s love of candy and a nod to the food truck that helped launch his career.

“I love gummies,” Choi said. “To have my own line of gummies, that’s huge.”