Nam Hyun-woo has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2013, mostly covering business and politics. He currently belongs to the Business Desk where he covers topics such as emerging tech, AI, ICT and Korea's chaebol community. Prior to joining the team, he was the paper's correspondent for the presidential office of Korea during the Yoon Suk Yeol and Moon Jae-in administrations.
Tridge eyes improved food security by fixing agri-food data asymmetry
Tridge CEO Shin Ho-shik / Courtesy of Tridge
By Nam Hyun-woo
Tridge CEO spotlights information asymmetry, predictability at APEC Workshop
A blanket 15 percent tariff from the U.S. and rapid geopolitical shifts have triggered an unprecedented upheaval in the global trade order, rattling supply chains for key trade items, particularly agri-food.
Coupled with climate change, which is shifting production regions and further undermining supply chain predictability, food businesses now face a growing need to review their strategies on when, where and how much food and agricultural products are produced and distributed.
That is why Shin Ho-shik, founder and CEO of Tridge, believes addressing the information asymmetry in the agri-food industry is essential to reducing risks to global food security.
He plans to highlight how artificial intelligence (AI) can help resolve this imbalance and improve the visibility of agri-food trade policies to food authority officials from 21 countries during an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) workshop on food security on Thursday.
“Food security is about having a system that enables food to reach those who need it at the right time, at a reasonable price and with predictability,” Shin said during a written interview with The Korea Times, Tuesday.
“The global supply chains are becoming increasingly vulnerable to unpredictable tariffs, climate events and logistics disruptions … Tridge plans to deliver a message to food security officials from various countries, urging them to move beyond closed, nation-centric systems and adopt open, data-driven frameworks that enable greater predictability and cooperation.”
A demonstration of Tridge's Eye Shelf / Courtesy of Tridge
Tridge was established in 2015 as an AI-based agri-food data platform providing data on transactions, productions, port prices, domestic prices, weather, seasonality and other information that can help food firms gain clearer insight into the global market.
In 2022 it became the world’s first agri-food unicorn company, valued at 3.6 trillion won ($3 billion), and now has offices in 44 countries providing real-time data and analysis of more than 4,000 products in 200 countries for over 488,000 enterprise users.
Acknowledged for its unique service, in 2024 it was designated as a specialized agri-food trade company by Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and became an official solution partner for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
Tridge’s service is gaining greater attention in the wake of U.S. tariff measures, which exposed vulnerabilities in the conventional agri-food value chain when responding quickly to supply chain disruptions.
For example, a major U.S. food manufacturer adopted Tridge’s solutions ahead of the White House’s tariff announcement to explore alternative sourcing countries and reduce its full dependence on avocado imports from Mexico.
“The conventional agri-food value chain has been driven by relationships — doing business with people you know,” Shin said. “And this has resulted in many producers not knowing where their products end up, and many buyers not knowing where to turn when supply fails.”
A selection of Haitai Calbee's Honey Butter Chips / Courtesy of Haitai Confectionery
He cited the example of honey butter-flavored potato chips. The potatoes come from Australia, palm oil from Malaysia, and sunflower oil from Ukraine and Argentina, while other ingredients, such as sugar and salt, are sourced globally.
“The potato farm in Australia doesn’t know what happens to the potatoes it produces, because these ingredients move through long, fragmented chains that are vulnerable to disruptions,” he said.
“This is the essence of information asymmetry, and it’s why supply chains struggle to pivot quickly in times of disruptions. Tridge is a trade intelligence platform that brings transparency to this structure and helps redesign the entire value chain with real-time data.”
Shin said the company seeks to address such challenges through Tridge EYE, a suite of AI-powered tools designed to provide a comprehensive view of the global agri-food supply chain.
Tridge EYE is comprised of three core functions. Eye Speaker provides alert notifications when disruptions are detected in products, countries and topics users follow. Eye Shelf offers a real-time, curated insight library to make vast amounts of actionable data digestible.
This is integrated with Eye Book, which helps businesses assess and predict purchasing trends by comparing their operations with global trends. Tridge claims that these tools can reduce information search time by up to 80 percent.
A demonstration of Tridge's Eye Speaker / Courtesy of Tridge
Shin stressed that these solutions can be particularly helpful for small businesses and those in emerging markets, as Tridge provides more accessible, productized alternatives to conventional intelligence services, which are often costly, labor-intensive and reliant on consulting.
“Traditionally, intelligence services were offered in high-cost formats, making them difficult for small businesses to access,” he said. “By offering these services as a subscription-based product, Tridge has made them much more accessible to a broader range of users,” Shin said. “A key point is that it enables these companies to independently manage their sourcing and sales, which were previously reliant on traders or packers in advanced economies.”
Shin noted that investments into the agri-food industry for food security are “the most environmentally friendly strategy to maximize benefits for all of humanity with the least amount of energy.
“It takes far less energy to feed people than to build machines. And a well-prepared meal brings just as much human value as an electric vehicle,” he added.