Domestic startups are leading the export of K food. It is rapidly promoting kimchi, bulgogi, and sesame oil to overseas consumers with technology and fresh marketing.
Food Culture Lab’s’Kimchi Seasoning’ is a kimchi-flavored powder. You can sprinkle it on nachos, popcorn, or pizza. The target of Kimchi Seasoning, developed in 2017, was the Western market. At that time, kimchi with a lot of lactic acid bacteria began to attract attention in the western world. It is produced through the process of fermenting the ingredients such as red pepper powder and garlic that go through the heat treatment process by crushing them. Lactobacillus extracted from kimchi are also injected. They also tried to target foreigners’ tastes by removing salted fish.
Kimchi Seasoning ranked first in the seasoning new product category in the first two weeks of its first sale on Amazon in the US in May 2019. It sold 100,000 domestic and overseas cumulative units in six months. Currently, in the Amazon Chili Powder category in the United States, it is ranked first, overtaking Japan’s Shichimi. Ahn Taeyang, the CEO of Food Culture Lab, said, “We are planning to stock 10,000 Amazon-based units as the stock is quickly exhausted.
Go Pizza is exporting pizza with Korean taste based on its own technology. Go Pizza is a restaurant franchise startup that cooks pizza with the patented automation duck’GOVEN’. Optimized technologies for each manufacturing process are applied, such as machine learning-based’AI smart topping table’,’Albago’, a robot that sprinkles sauce, and an AI system for order control.
Go Pizza started its global business by opening its first overseas store in Bengaluru, India in 2019. In addition to traditional pizza menus such as cheese pizza and pepperoni pizza, Korean menus such as bulgogi pizza and sweet potato pizza were put in the lead. Singapore also entered the market for the first time in April 2020, and in December, recorded monthly sales of 100 million won in eight months. Currently, it operates 103 stores worldwide. “The most popular overseas pizza is bulgogi pizza,” said Lim Jae-won, CEO of Go Pizza. “Go pizza is also helping to popularize Korean food.”
Quen’s Bucket is a startup that makes sesame oil and perilla oil using only domestic raw materials. Currently, it is exported to New York, Singapore, and Taiwan. Exports are increasing by 150% every quarter. It is used in New York’s Michelin restaurants’Daniel’ and’Batard’, and is widely used by local people. In May of last year, it was also featured in Bloomberg, an American business magazine. An official from Quen’s Bucket said, “Sesame oil has a flavor comparable to olive oil or butter,” and said, “There is plenty of potential to be used as a global food ingredient.”
Reporter Mingi Koo [email protected]
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