GS Retail and Home Shopping Foster Food Startups... "Establishing New Business Models"

Fake Coffee and Low-Sodium Lunchboxes:
Products from 5 Youth Startup Companies
Available at Convenience Stores, Supermarkets, and Online Malls
Mobile Live Event on the 19th

[Asia Economy Reporter Minyoung Cha] Products from five youth startup companies nurtured jointly by GS Retail and GS Home Shopping, including fake coffee, low-sodium lunch boxes, and Japanese home-style ready meals (HMR), have been launched.

On the 13th, the two companies announced that these products will be sold through the online mall GS Shop, convenience store GS25, some GS The Fresh supermarket locations, and GS Fresh Mall. GS Home Shopping will also hold a mobile-only live broadcast called ‘Mobile Live’ starting at 8 PM on the 19th.

The five innovative startups are Dalcha Company (fake coffee), Itmaple (low-sodium lunch boxes), Sweet Bio (Greek yogurt), Nutrigram (protein bars), and Butai (Japanese home-style meals).

Dalcha Company is a team that developed the ‘Fake’ series, a black barley tea beverage, for customers who cannot consume caffeine. During the blind test for the launch of Dalcha Company’s Fake Americano and Fake Latte, many people could not distinguish them from real coffee.

Itmaple has developed low-sodium lunch boxes and manufacturing technology for patients with kidney disease. Itmaple is introducing the ‘Delicious Low-Sodium? Vivid Plate’ lunch box this time so that not only patients but also dieters and more people can enjoy a healthy meal.

Madon Seok operates ‘Butai,’ a restaurant that has been consistently loved as a Japanese home-style cuisine spot known for dishes like Maze Soba and Rosu Katsu. Butai’s signature menu items will be released as meal kits under GS Retail’s brand ‘Simply Cook’ so that anyone can easily enjoy them at home.

Sweet Bio is already famous for its rich Greek yogurt brand ‘Greek Day,’ especially around major university areas, while Nutrigram has succeeded in commercializing protein bars that minimize sugar content while increasing protein levels.

Since July last year, GS Retail and GS Home Shopping have been conducting the ‘Next Foodicon’ recruitment event to discover and nurture food manufacturing startups with the goal of finding future food sources and co-growing with unicorn companies. Out of 162 participating companies, five were finally selected. Afterward, product planning experts from both companies provided 12 weeks of mentoring and offered business support funds worth up to 20 million KRW per team.

The five startups from the first Next Foodicon cohort will, starting with this test sale, develop future food products together with GS Retail and GS Home Shopping, collaborate on product manufacturing and distribution processes, and jointly conduct marketing on social network services (SNS) such as YouTube.

Park Young-hoon, Vice President of the New Business Strategy Group at GS Home Shopping, said, “It is meaningful that Next Foodicon, the first acceleration program jointly conducted by two distribution companies within the GS Group, has discovered promising food startups and achieved results up to actual product launches. We will continue to make efforts to establish a new model of mutual business collaboration through strategic investment in startups, professional education, networking, and other stages supporting growth.”