Dongwon F&B’s brand “Yangban” is Korea’s first premium Korean cuisine home meal replacement (HMR) brand designed to highlight its 36-year-histry of preserving traditional Korean cuisine and offering convenience. (Photo: Dongwon F&B)

Dongwon F&B, a pioneer of canned tuna products in Korea, has emerged as a leading integrated food maker, responsible for a wide array of about 3000 food products.

They range from fish processed items and canned ham to processed milk, health functional foods, as well as home meal replacements.

True to its management tenet “Good foods are good medicines,” the company has made strenuous R&D and investments to spearhead a healthy cuisine culture and supply healthier and better food products.

These efforts have paid off as Dongwon F&B has created mega brands such as “Dongwon Tuna,” “Richam,” and “Yangbanjuk” (nobleman’s porridge).

 
Dongwon F&B has grown into one of the nation’s representative food makers as it joined a circle of companies that posted 3 trillion won in sales in 2020 for the second straight year.

Dongwon Tuna, a canned tuna household brand, made its debut in December 1982. Dongwon Tuna is one of the nation’s representative tuna brands, marking the 40th anniversary this year.

Dongwon Tuna products were expensive compared to national per capital income at the time of the launching of the brand.

The brand had found its way at convenience stores as a food without monetary burden and with ease on the back of the nation’s condensed explosive growth in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Entering the 2000s, Dongwon Tuna has been touted as a healthy food in keeping with well-being trends.

In particular, as concern over high-protein, healthy foods is rising in the wake of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, demand on canned tunas, rich in nutrients at relatively cheaper prices, is on a constant rise.

Canned tuna is one of the main high-protein foods. Eating a 150-gram Dongwon Tuna version, containing 28 grams of protein, could fill almost half of the recommended daily protein intake.

Canned tuna is considered a healthy food, rich with diverse ingredients capable of enhancing the immunity of body such as selenium, DHA, EPA and other Omega 3 acids.

More than 200 million Dongwon Tuna products are sold in Korea and abroad annually. The brand reached a milestone in the Korean canned fishing market as Dongwon became the first Korean company to top the 5 billion product threshold in cumulating sales in 2014.

The company surpassed 6.5 billion canned products in cumulative sales in 2020.
Entering the 2000s, Dongwon F&B ramped up its presence in the meat process business with brands such as Richam, going beyond the fisheries processing business.

The company entered the dairy processing business as it acquired the current brand Cow and Tree from Haitai Confectionery & Foods. Dongwon F&B launched functional food brands such as CNC and Dongwon Chunjiin (Red Ginseng) and the food online mall Dongwon Mall to establish itself as an integrated food maker contributing to improving public health.

Dongwon F&B launched the premium canned ham brand Richam under the low-salt concept that made a splash in the conventional high-salt ham market.

The company lowered salt content by more than 20 percent while maintaining its intrinsic tastes and softness thanks to one-year R&D efforts.

Richam has gone from strength to strength as it topped 1.2 trillion won in cumulating revenues and 350 million canned ham products in the cumulating number sold until last year. The Richam has become a mega brand with more than 150 billion won in annual sales.

Dongwon F&B secured dairy processing facilities, technologies and distribution networks by acquiring DM Food and Haitai Dairy Co., in 2005 and 2006, respectively. It launched the premium dairy product brand Denmark to supply fresher and healthier dairy products.

Among the company’s representative dairy products are “Demark in Pocket Cheese” and “Denmark Drinking Yogurt,” which topped 1 billion won in the cumulating number sold. The brand Denamark stood at about 600 billion won in annual average sales.

Dongwon opened the Dongwon Mall in 2007 to enter the on-line distribution market. The mall has fared well with an annual average double-digit growth rate for 11 years after its debut. It has grown into a major on-line mall with cumulating membership soaring to 1 million and the number of annul orders topping 1 million.

The mall sells about 130,000 kinds of products, ranging from food raw materials to house hold/kitchen items, cosmetics products, home appliance and infants’ items, including some 3,000 kinds of foods and food ingredients related to subsidiaries of Dongwon Group.

Dongwon F&B launched the on-line new on-line corporate entity, named “Dongwon Dear Food” in April to secure competitiveness in the on-line food market.

Dongwon F&B is trying to nurture future growth engines by aggressively investing in diverse food areas such as home meal replacements (HMRs), pet foods and meat replacements on top of fishery processed foods, meat processed items and dairy products.