my timesThe Korea Times
aoshima11

Ko Dong-hwan

Korea Times Business Reporter

Covering the food & beverage industry, beauty, fashion, retail markets, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and related people and entities worldwide

Go to URL

Read more

Companies

Nespresso explores flavor with new one-touch capsule coffeemaker

Nespresso Korea unveiled its new marketing campaign aimed at the thriving capsule coffee market here on Thursday with the introduction of its new Vertuo Up coffeemaker. The Korean subsidiary launched a new brand campaign asserting coffee is more than a simple beverage but rather something to explore based on personal desire — exploration enabled by the Vertuo Up's one-touch function that preheats in just three seconds. The new campaign is in response to Korea’s evolving coffee culture, driven by consumers in their 20s and 30s who enjoy trying new drinks, especially iced varieties. “Coffee drinks that had remained below the radar in the past are now gaining rare retrospective attention from these young consumers. Sales of flavored and decaffeinated coffees have jumped over 40 percent since 2023. Those aged 20 to 34 nowadays drink at least two cups of coffee every day and 88 percent of them choose iced coffees,” Nespresso Korea CEO Park Sung-Yong said during the company's press conference in Seoul’s Seongsu area. “In our recent survey, 56 percent of respondents aged 25 to 34 sa

Apr 23, 2026By Ko Dong-hwan
Nespresso explores flavor with new one-touch capsule coffeemaker
Companies

Harim, CJ CheilJedang to spur meat exports to Vietnam following summit

Harim and CJ CheilJedang will make a fresh entry into the Vietnamese meat market after a state summit between Korea and Vietnam on Wednesday cleared quarantine hurdles for the Korean food firms. The two firms are the only Korean meat producers that can start exporting to Vietnam for now, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced Thursday. The government said Vietnam has fast-tracked the approval for the companies to export to the Southeast Asian country. Harim specializes in chicken in fresh, processed and home-meal-replacement types for refrigerated, frozen and room temperature storage. CJ CheilJedang, with its signature food brand Bibigo, is now exporting frozen and microwavable foods like dumplings, gimbaps and fried rices to 70 countries. The export agreement will serve as a lucrative opportunity for Harim and CJ CheilJedang as they gain access to a promising export market. Vietnam is a key consumer market in Southeast Asia, with the country's population surpassing 100 million as of 2025. The agriculture ministry said the Vietnamese meat market is now valued at $1

Apr 23, 2026By Ko Dong-hwan
Harim, CJ CheilJedang to spur meat exports to Vietnam following summit
Companies

Korean firm Elyssia finds success in overseas baby care product market

It has been six years since Korean total baby care products developer Elyssia began accelerating its efforts for global expansion. Since private equity fund company Widus Partners acquired the firm in 2021 and gave it room to explore unlimited business opportunities, the company pushed ahead with trying to win the interest of consumers worldwide, one country after another. Now, the Seoul-based company distributes about 30 brands across categories of skin care, toy, book, health supplement, breastfeed, hygiene, everyday product, interior and furniture, with 2,000 different types of product. About 80 percent of the brands are Elyssia’s private labels, manufactured by original design manufacturers in Korea and China. The portfolio has been possible due to Elyssia's three particular strengths. First, it has adopted a five-stage inspection process called "gate review" (GR) to pipeline products in the highest market needs and with the most trustworthy quality. The data-driven process oversees from market analysis to sample production, marketing, promotion and final check-up. The comprehensive

Apr 23, 2026By Ko Dong-hwan
Korean firm Elyssia finds success in overseas baby care product market
Companies

Wooriwa chefs cook up recipes at Pet Food Kitchen

Wooriwa invests in pet food development and manufacturing beyond what most people imagine. Rather than just focusing on scale, the company hones its technological capacity to create pet food for dogs and cats across every stage of their lifespan. Pet Food Kitchen in Eumseong County, North Chungcheong Province, serves as the Seoul-based company’s manufacturing hub. Opening in 2020, the four-story plant, with a total floor area of 23,800 square meters, produces an average of 60,000 tons of pet food per year, with a maximum capacity of 120,000 tons. With each floor running 250 meters long, the wide interior space is divided into different processing zones, with each quarter strictly quarantined from one another. The measure prevents working sectors from compromising clinical safety by sharing air, ingredients or personnel. Inside the plant are the company’s latest facilities, all certified for hazard analysis and critical control points, organic production, and quarantine conditions. Vacuum coating and twin extruders are part of the plant’s key equipment helping to sustain production

Apr 22, 2026By Ko Dong-hwan
Wooriwa chefs cook up recipes at Pet Food Kitchen
Companies

Climbing Lotte Tower with exoskeleton

Lotte ON employees wear the Hypershell exoskeleton, a wearable device that helps users walk or climb stairs more easily, at Lotte World Tower in Seoul, before participating in this year's Lotte World Tower Sky Run, Sunday. Participants in the sports challenge climb 123 stairs in the country's highest tower. Lotte ON, an e-commerce subsidiary under Lotte Shopping, began selling the Hypershell lineup, Sunday. Courtesy of Lotte ON

Apr 20, 2026By Ko Dong-hwanphoto
Climbing Lotte Tower with exoskeleton
Companies

LG Innotek to supply in-car Wi-Fi 7 module in Europe

LG Innotek will supply its in-vehicle Wi-Fi 7 modules to a leading European automotive parts company, cementing its leading position in the global connected car market. The company said Monday it has secured a 100 billion won ($68 million) order for an automotive Wi-Fi 7 communication module from a German auto parts maker. Mass production of the module will begin next year, and it will be integrated into audio, video and navigation systems before being supplied to major carmakers. LG Innotek said the module will support ultra-wide bandwidth of 320 megahertz, doubling the bandwidth per channel compared to existing Wi-Fi 6E modules. The specification triples the module's data transmission speed. The module also increases data processing volume by 20 percent. The module houses two antennas, applying a multiple-input multiple-output technology to help reduce signal loss. A single antenna, according to the company, can miss some signals while handling data transmission, but another supplementary antenna can prevent any missed signals. This allows a car connected to multiple devices online to

Apr 20, 2026By Ko Dong-hwan
LG Innotek to supply in-car Wi-Fi 7 module in Europe
Companies

IKEA Korea vows to expand reach through design philosophy

IKEA is renewing its commitment to the Korean market, emphasizing its philosophy of “democratic design” as it seeks to reach as many consumers as possible with affordable prices and improved store accessibility. IKEA Korea held a media day event on Monday under the slogan “Home Begins with You,” outlining how its democratic design philosophy aims to support the expansion of its offline and online presence here. Key elements of the philosophy are low-priced furnishings designed by IKEA’s 10 designers. The company believes the most essential condition to appeal to the market here is affordability. “How do we reach many people? It’s by affordable prices,” said Sarah Fager, a senior designer with 20 years of experience at IKEA Group, in a press conference in Seoul’s western Gangseo District. “We don’t use design to add cost. We use design the opposite way. Design is used to create innovative and beautiful solutions. The way we do that is based on insight and research of homes globally.” According to IKEA, democratic design uses five parameters — form, function, quali

Apr 20, 2026By Ko Dong-hwan
IKEA Korea vows to expand reach through design philosophy
Companies

Baedal Minjok develops AI feature describing food for visually challenged

Baedal Minjok, the largest food-ordering online platform here, has developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) technology providing more detailed audio description of foods for those with visual impairments. Woowa Brothers, operator of the platform, said Sunday it has completed tests of the AI-based description technology among a group of visually impaired users. The company teamed up with AI-based image startup Connect Brick to develop the function which verbally describes details such as the doneness and ingredients of dishes shown in menu images. The technology works by having AI analyze images and vividly describe their color, level of doneness, visual appearance of main ingredients and delivering these descriptions as spoken audio. The technology, for example, can provide a detailed description of a half-and-half pizza: “Golden brown dough is topped with pepperoni on one side, which looks as if it’s holding in rich juices, while on the other side, corn, ham, cheese and sauces are generously layered together.” The AI audio function has advanced from a screen-reader feature tha

Apr 19, 2026By Ko Dong-hwan
Baedal Minjok develops AI feature describing food for visually challenged
Companies

Shinsegae pivots on AI strategy after dropping OpenAI partnership

Retail conglomerate Shinsegae is pivoting on its plans to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) in its businesses, canceling a partnership with OpenAI just 11 days after entering into the agreement and signing a separate memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Reflection AI. Shinsegae’s quick revocation of its partnership with OpenAI is raising doubts about the conglomerate’s AI strategy. While many retail companies are experimenting with ways to integrate AI into their businesses, such as improving logistics systems or enhancing user experience, Shinsegae appears to be contemplating a different direction in its deployment of AI. The conglomerate said on Friday it has “decided to stop discussions with OpenAI in order to pursue a select-and-focus strategy and thereby rapidly expand collaboration with Reflection AI into the retail sector and efficiently and swiftly advance construction of an AI data center.” Shinsegae Chief Strategy Officer Lim Young-rok on April 6 signed an MOU with OpenAI Korea Country Manager Kim Kyung-hoon for jointly developing “AI commerce,” an e-commerce m

Apr 19, 2026By Ko Dong-hwan
Shinsegae pivots on AI strategy after dropping OpenAI partnership
Companies

Korean Air tops consumer trust, safety in gov’t assessment

Korean Air stood out among 51 local and foreign airlines operating international routes through six Korean airports in the government’s annual assessment. In the evaluation by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, based on last year’s performance, the company scored the highest among all airlines in the consumer satisfaction category. The evaluation was based on a survey of more than 31,000 passengers. The company also earned the highest grade possible of A+++ in the safety category, which focuses on accident records and safety management policies. Four other Korean firms — Asiana Airline, Air Seoul, Air Premia and Eastar Jet— also received the same high assessment. Korean Air also received the highest possible marks for user protection measures, which looks at how companies handled legal disputes involving passengers with grievances and what legal punishments were handed down by courts. All Korean airlines except Air Premia scored an "A" or higher in the category. Korean Air received a B++ in the flight reliability category for international routes, below Air Busan

Apr 17, 2026By Ko Dong-hwan
Korean Air tops consumer trust, safety in gov’t assessment
previous page
1415161718
next page

Top 5 stories

Korea Times
About Us
Introduction
History
Contact Us
Products & Services
Subscribe
E-paper
RSS Service
Content Sales
Site Map
Policy
Code of Ethics
Ombudsman
Privacy Policy
Youth Protection Policy
Terms of Service
Copyright Policy
Family Site
Hankookilbo
Dongwha Group
FacebookXYoutubeInstagram
CEO & Publisher: Oh Young-jinDigital News Email: webmaster@koreatimes.co.krTel: 02-724-2114Online newspaper registration No: 서울,아52844Date of registration: 2020.02.05Masthead: The Korea TimesCopyright © koreatimes.co.kr. All rights reserved.