Elementary Students' Ideas Commercialized and Sold
SK Siltron announced on the 20th that it has launched the imperfect agricultural product vegetable chips 'Garlic Mave, Onion Mave,' which were commercialized from elementary school students' ideas, on the domestic crowdfunding platform Wadiz. Sales are scheduled until the 27th, and currently, sales performance has exceeded 600% of the plan.
Garlic Mave and Onion Mave are fried chips made by frying whole garlic and onions directly purchased from farms in the Gyeongbuk region, such as Gumi and Uiseong. Last year, SK Siltron introduced these products through the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance)-type future talent development program 'myGumi.' myGumi is a program where elementary school students propose ideas to solve community-related problems and carry them out as actual projects.
Ugly agricultural product vegetable chips, 'Onion Mave (left)' and 'Garlic Mave' / Photo by SK Siltron
Among the 355 students who participated in myGumi last year, SK Siltron selected the idea from the 'Bright E-deul' team, composed of 6th graders from Jeongsu Elementary School in Gumi. This team proposed the idea of developing vegetable chips to promote the consumption of discarded imperfect agricultural products. SK Siltron supported this commercialization with funding worth 30 million KRW, along with professional consulting and mentoring from culinary researcher Kim Young-bin and others, as well as support for market linkage.
During the business process, SK Siltron collaborated with the social enterprise 'Ingan-gwa Gonggan,' which operates the Market Braze brand. Ingan-gwa Gonggan discovers producers who produce healthy food locally and, through collaboration, pioneers various sales channels such as flea markets, pop-up stores, and group purchases before selling the products.
Farmers who supplied agricultural products for the production of 'Garlic Marv' and 'Onion Marv' products / Photo by SK Siltron
SK Siltron plans to continuously expand the number of local farms providing agricultural products and sales outlets to increase vegetable chip sales. The company aims to expand sales channels to local food stores in Gumi and Uiseong, Gyeongbuk, and develop the products into regional specialties.
An SK Siltron official said, “Starting from an elementary school student's idea of a healthy snack made with healthy ingredients, the product was successfully commercialized thanks to the efforts of local farms, social enterprises, and culinary researchers. We will continue to discover and support the implementation of various ideas to solve community problems.”
SK Siltron plans to continue the myGumi program this year as well. The scale will be increased from last year, raising the number of elementary and middle school participants to 550. The number of social enterprises and social ventures to collaborate with will also be expanded to six.
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