The museum opened in 1986 in Pil-dong, central Seoul, and passed to Pulmuone a year later as the food company's flagship philanthropic venture.
It moved to the Korea World Trade Center complex in 1988 and to COEX Mall in 2000, before reopening in the Insa-dong art district in 2015 under its current name.
Entry will be free for all visitors on Sept. 29, the anniversary date.
The anniversary exhibition, opening the same day, traces four decades of the museum through yellowed newspaper clippings and photographs displayed in the fifth-floor study room.
Two upper floors will screen 28 kimchi videos alongside 100 photographs of different varieties, while visitor guest books will stand on each floor from Sept. 22 to Oct. 4.
Two workshops will also run.
Children aged 6 to 13, accompanied by a guardian, can make tomato cabbage kimchi on Oct. 3 and 4, and an English-language session for adult foreign visitors, DIY Kimchi 101, will be held at 2 p.m. on Sept. 29 and 30.
"This event was planned to mark 40 years of the kimchi museum and, at the same time, to express gratitude to the many people who have loved it over those four decades," said Na Kyung-in, team manager at Museum Kimchikan.
AJP Takeaways
- Museum Kimchikan, the kimchi museum operated by Pulmuone Co. in Seoul's Insa-dong district, marks the 40th anniversary of its founding on Sept. 29, 2026, with free admission, an anniversary exhibition and kimchi-making workshops.
- Admission is half price through Oct. 4, 2026, and the first 40 ticket holders each day receive a pack of Pulmuone stir-fried kimchi and a bottled drink; the anniversary exhibition screens 28 kimchi videos and displays 100 photographs of kimchi varieties.
- The museum, which opened in Pil-dong in 1986 and reopened in Insa-dong in 2015, draws about 40,000 visitors a year, roughly half of them from abroad, according to Pulmuone.
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