Winning Orders Without a Sales Team - Cheonyeon

[편집자주] Money Today has launched a year-round series in a joint effort with Samsung Electronics' Mutual Development and Cooperation Center to help small businesses promote their products. The goal of this project is to publicize the products and services of next-generation firms in three languages (Korean, English, Chinese) around the world. The series is sponsored by the Korea Commission for Corporate Partnership.

Vinegar receives particular attention when people have a poor appetite due to spring fatigue and warm weather. Vinegar promotes fat decomposition in the body, helping discharge fat and subsequently lose extra weight. It also has an excellent property to decompose lactic acid, which causes fatigue, remove active oxygen from the body, and prevent aging. In Japan, which has the longest life expectancy in the world, people consume ten times more vinegar than Koreans. Professor Hans Adolf Krebs, a Nobel Prize winner, said that drinking 100㎎ of vinegar daily helps men live ten years longer and women 12 years longer than the average life expectancy.

CEO Lim Kyung-man introducing Cheonyeon products Photo by editor Song Ki-woo

Since its founding in 1976, Cheonyeon (cyvinegar.com) has specialized solely in vinegar. Although the company has no sales team, it produces OEM and private brand products for 100 clients, including Lotte Samkang, Monggo Foods, Obok Korean Food, Sempio, Emart and others. It also supplied vinegar to Costco, a U.S. company known for high standards. The company was able to win so many clients without marketing efforts thanks to the vinegar fermentation expertise of its CEO and researchers. Few vinegar producing companies have acetic acid bacteria needed for producing white vinegar, but Cheonyeon cultivates and manages various kinds of acetic acid bacteria on its own.

CEO Lim learned traditional Japanese technologies to produce vinegar by receiving training and working at the renowned Japanese food company Mizkan. Based on his experience, he developed the first brown rice vinegar in Korea. In addition to OEM and private brand manufacturing, Cheonyeon also produces its own brands, which have outstanding quality. Its brown rice vinegar is made with 100 percent brown rice, which is fermented for a prolonged period of time. After long fermentation, the vinegar acquires a dark color. Black vinegar contains more organic acid and 45.9 times as many amino acids as regular white vinegar.

Cheonyeon has also developed wine vinegar using grapes produced in Yeongcheon, where the company is based. Wine vinegar is fermented in earthenware jars for three years according to the traditional method, and is similar to Italian balsamic vinegar. It has a nice grape aroma and a slightly sour, yet tender taste.

CEO Lim says that Cheonyeon aims to produce 100 percent natural vinegar using fruits and grains, and diversify its products to include sauces, such as sauces for tofu pockets stuffed with rice.

Editors Shin Jae-eun (jenny0912@mt.co.kr), Song Ki-woo

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