[Asia Exclusive] The Born Korea Turning 30 Next Year... "We Must Start Act 2 Alongside the IPO"

70% Progress in IPO Preparation Including Clarifying New Business Directions
Focused on Delivery and Packaging Amid COVID-19 Crisis... Steady Growth Over 3 Years
Pilot Local Coexistence Projects with Local Governments like Yesan, Chungnam
New Business TMC Department... Fostering Overseas YouTubers to Promote Korean Dining
Consulting Promising 'Golmok Sikdang'... Supporting Their Growth
"Our Goal Is to Build a Virtuous Cycle Company Even Without Baek Jong-won"

Baek Jong-won, CEO of The Born Korea, is smiling while holding a cup with the Paik's Coffee logo.

Direct Talk Asia Special - Baek Jong-won, CEO of The Born Korea

[Asia Economy Reporters Kim Yuri, Moon Hyewon] Baek Jong-won, CEO of The Born Korea, who was so active that there was a joke saying, "From type 1 Jong-won to type 100 Jong-won, if there are 100 people, isn't it Baek Jong-won," is recently pouring the capacity of 100 people into company work. As The Born Korea, which will celebrate its 30th anniversary next year, plans an initial public offering (IPO), it is advancing the systematization of new businesses ahead of it. Just as one plans a second act in life around their thirties, The Born Korea is also facing major changes including going public next year.

On the 14th, Baek met with Asia Economy at The Born Korea headquarters in Nonhyeon-dong, Seoul, and said, "We are concretizing the future business direction for next year's listing," adding, "Internally, the preparation for the IPO is 60-70% complete." The Born Korea, which officially announced "going public in two years" in 2018 and began IPO preparations, had temporarily postponed the schedule due to variables such as COVID-19 but recently resumed concrete preparations. Even amid the COVID situation, by swiftly shifting to delivery and takeout, The Born Korea's consolidated sales increased from 139 billion KRW in 2019 to 150.7 billion KRW in 2020, and growth continued last year as well.

The future Baek envisions for The Born Korea is to leap beyond being a "global franchise company" to becoming a "Korean dining industry promotion, consulting, and franchise platform company." One of the new businesses he is focusing on is the "Regional Win-Win Project." This project forms competitive restaurant alleys in collaboration with local governments and creates traditional markets that people want to visit, turning them into tourism products. From the local government's perspective, budgets for balanced regional development can be used in practical and sustainable ways for regional development, and it is expected to attract young people to the regions. Baek plans to showcase a pilot project model in his hometown, Yesan, Chungnam, in the second half of this year. He emphasized, "Everyone worries but has not found a solution to the imbalance between urban and rural areas. Developing this as a business model was the start of this project, hoping it could also enhance Korea's dining competitiveness." The plan is to create competitive dining products using seasonal local specialties with local residents, attract external tourists through this, and naturally have young people go to the regions to show off their "style," adding The Born Korea's consulting capabilities to this virtuous cycle as a business.

Another new business of The Born Korea, the TMC (The Born Media Company) division, is an extension of this thinking. Originally a department producing and managing Baek's YouTube channel "Baek Jong-won's Cooking Secrets," which has 5.31 million subscribers, TMC recently expanded into a multi-channel network (MCN) that nurtures foreign creators to promote Korean cooking methods, ingredients, restaurants, as well as Korean culture and tourism resources overseas. This business looks beyond COVID-19, starting from the idea that after creating places through the Regional Win-Win Project, impactful promotion should be done not only domestically but also internationally. Channels like the Italian "Fabri" channel, which currently has about 150,000 subscribers, are works of The Born Korea's TMC division. Baek said, "When COVID ends, something confident to show overseas from Korea is needed. While concretizing the Regional Win-Win Project, through the TMC division, we plan to nurture YouTubers who use local languages and capture Korea, serving as guides on where foreigners should visit and what to eat when they come to Korea."

Leveraging existing strengths, The Born Korea is also strengthening its "franchise consulting platform" as a new business. This business transfers The Born Korea's 30 years of experience and systems, currently leading about 20 brands and over 2,100 stores nationwide, to promising "alley restaurants" aspiring to franchise. Baek expressed, "Among many aspects needed for franchise business, we will expand our role as a franchise platform providing services that cover necessary parts like menu development and store expansion." For example, The Born Korea helps with store expansion for "Yeondon Pork Cutlet," menu development for "Mans Gimbap," and sauce and product development for "Corner Steak." Baek said, "We should not only try to develop franchise brands ourselves. We will nurture truly necessary brands through testing, but also broaden the scope to help promising restaurants gain competitiveness as franchise companies."

With the competitiveness of sauces and raw materials as a franchise, The Born Korea will also actively pursue meal kits and home meal replacement (HMR) businesses. Baek explained, "We will apply the sauce, raw materials, and primary and secondary processing competitiveness we have through franchises to meal kits and HMR businesses through an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) cooperation system." He added, "We are considering domestic army stew meal kits applying Baek-ham (Baek's ham) and dedicated sausages so that the meaning is not diluted by foreign ham and sausages entering Korean army stew."

This year, as preparations are made to gradually escape the influence of COVID, The Born Korea will also strengthen overseas businesses in regions heavily influenced by the Korean Wave, such as Australia and Southeast Asia. Baek said, "The Saemaeul Sikdang opened by a local CEO in Thailand is very popular," and "Yeondon Pork Cutlet will open a store in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, in the first half of this year."

Baek's ultimate goal is for The Born Korea to operate well without the symbolism of "Baek Jong-won." He concluded, "It was very important to let go of the mindset of 'It can't be done without me,'" adding, "My dream is to create a virtuous cycle where The Born Korea operates well even without Baek Jong-won."