At HiConf Seoul, a glimpse of the future of food

At the Healthy Innovation Conference in Seoul, industry leaders discussed biotechnology's role in sustainable food solutions.

Business executives and academics speak during a panel discussion titled ″Global Perspective on Bioeconomy″ as part of the Healthy Innovation Conference at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Center on Oct. 23. [HEALTHY INNOVATION CONFERENCE]

How can businesses respark the public’s interest in, and create competitive prices for, alternative meats? What fats can work as an alternative to palm oil, a cheap and versatile driver of deforestation?

Forty speakers from research institutes, startups and retail giants including CJ Foods CTO Gregory Yep, Shinsegae Food CEO Song Hyun-seok and Seoul National University Professor and Korea FoodTech Council Co-Chair Lee Ki-won answered pressing questions about the food tech innovation scene and market at Healthy Innovation Conference (HiConf) Seoul 2024 on Oct. 23 at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Center in Gangnam District, southern Seoul.

The conference broadly centered on the use of biotechnology in sustainability solutions — or, in simpler terms, the future of food. It was divided into six sessions, including topics such as sweet proteins, the use of food as medicine and the slump in the biotech startup market, as well as a separate startup pitch event.

Half the speakers were from outside Korea. This was crucial to the conference’s goal of connecting global businesses and set HiConf apart from other food tech conferences in Korea, which tend to prioritize domestic companies, according to Raymund Scheffler, the German founder and CEO of the Abu Dhabi-based organizing firm Healthy Innovations Technology Investment (HiTi).

Abu Dhabi-based investment firm Healthy Innovations Technology Investment CEO and founder Raymund Scheffler speaks at the Healthy Innovation Conference at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Center on Oct. 23. [HEALTHY INNOVATION CONFERENCE]

“’Collaboration’ is the key word for this conference. While Korea has amazing IP [intellectual property], their openness to collaborate is limited, and so they are not maximizing it,” Scheffler told the Korea JoongAng Daily in an interview while the conference took place.

HiTi secured the rights to produce and distribute Dongwha Pharmaceutical's probiotics, said to improve cognition, in the Middle East.

Startups in Korea tend to benefit from Korea's strong educational system and its government's financial support in their early stages, CEO Scheffler said. But it is the next steps — mass production and commercialization for global markets — where such businesses often lack sufficient funds and experience, Scheffler believes, and where foreign investors could step in.

This is especially important given the current wave of global protectionism, combined with many governments' growing emphasis on food security, Scheffler said. While such policies may not bar budding startups from leveraging overseas manufacturing, it means that doing so will increasingly require local expertise.

The CEO's advice for Korean businesses: When choosing a country, consider its government. A sweet protein business, for example, might find the most success in a country with higher rates of obesity where lawmakers are hungry for sugar alternatives. Also, Scheffler said, Korean firms could more productively utilize their stock listings, warning that many of its midsize companies aren't seeing turnover in the current market.

Beyond Meat products are seen in a refrigerated case inside a grocery store in Mount Prospect, Illinois, on Feb. 19, 2022.

Elsewhere at the conference, startup founders presented case studies of their products' success in the food tech market and debated different methods of finding customers.

On the matter of producing alternative protein, for instance, Dao Foods International co-founder Tao Zhang argued that, as seen in China and in other markets, products that simply tried to replace real dairy or meat products were not competitive as they would be constantly compared to the real thing. It was important for alternative products, plant-based or not, to differentiate themselves.

Patrick Bühr, head of research and development at Rügenwalder Mühle, disagreed.

“Why does alternative meat have to be like meat? The disappointing answer is that people won’t buy it [otherwise]. Meat is too good,” he said, pointing to statistics on Generation X, the food’s biggest spenders, and their tendency to not purchase products that strayed too far away from their source material.

HiConf will return to Korea, HiTi CEO Scheffler told the JoongAng Daily.

“There are only a few places in the world where food tech will happen, which includes Korea,” he said. “We will definitely come for a second round.”

BY KIM JU-YEON [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]