Seoul Food
Company background:
Seoul Food is a Derry based start-up business that was set up by founder and entrepreneur Seunghui Mulhern to share delicious and healthy Korean food with people in Northern Ireland.
Challenge:
The company had identified a gap in the local market for a range of traditional Korean Gimbap products. They specifically wanted to develop their Kimchi Gimbap product to be available for online sales and potentially as a retail option in local shops and restaurants.
Seoul Food required support with refining the recipes, reviewing the processes to effectively ensure consistency and repeatability was achieved at upscale. The company also had limited knowledge of labelling requirements for retail and foodservice therefore they wanted to look at support in ingredient and packaging sourcing for the finished products to ensure a successful route to market.
Solution:
To assist and make their idea a reality Seoul Food made contact with North West Regional College (NWRC) Business Support Centre (BSC) who supported them through the InnovateUs programme which is funded by the Department for the Economy.
NWRC Culinary Technical Consultant, Rita O’Kane, provided upskilling in recipe standardisation, product labelling including nutrition calculations & allergens, ingredient & packaging sourcing, production method & processes.
Impact:
On completion of the project with the support of the NWRC and InnovateUs programme the company was able to successfully develop a Korean Tuna Gimbap prototype which is now ready to enter the foodservice and retail markets.
Seunghui Mulhern, Owner of Seoul Food, described the benefits of working with NWRC’s Business Support Centre via the InnovateUs programme:
‘‘I have just begun my new adventure of my own Gimbap business and I am so happy with the support Rita from Foodovation provided me with to help with all the scientific information relative to my products and I would encourage anyone to contact the team when developing new ideas. The assistance and help has been invaluable.’’
