photo: Hyoungsu Park, CEO of Dvotion

To celebrate the launch of Tech Seoul, we started to meet CEOs representing Korean startups. Today, for the third time meeting, we interviewed Hyoungsu Park, CEO of Dvotion. Interviews were conducted in writing.

Good morning, Mr.Hyoungsu Park, thank you for taking the time to meet us today. An interview with Hyoungsu Park, CEO of Dvotion, an alternative meat food-tech startup, has developed a new technology for plant-based fibers, will be a very interesting and informative moment for Tech Seoul readers.



Q. Please introduce your company 

Dvotion is a food-tech company and known for plant-based meat or meat alternatives. We prioritize using natural and sustainable ingredient food options and strive to promote sustainable food production and consumption practices. Also, Dvotion are committed to provide innovative plant-based products that align with health and environmental consideration. So we suggest diverse plant-based food to people

Q. What kind of projects are planned for 2023?

We are planning to introduce various plant-based products using newly adopted technologies. With this new tech, we launched plant-based shrimp mandu lately. This type of mandu hasn’t been selling in Korea so far. Furthermore, we are going to substitute a various of food what people eat often to 100% plant-based ingredients only foods.

Hoping to meet customers offline in store and events that we are planning to cooperate with various restaurants.

Q. What's the story behind your company?

For the first place, Dvotion is started to contribute to solve hunger issues. While trying to make this dream happen, we found a fact. Keeping the earth be healthy is the priority of it. And The Plant-based meat was the solution. We were chefs, the food and food-tech are what we can do better. We started researching plant-based alternative meats, taking inspiration from molecular gastronomy techniques refined at the Chicago Michelin-starred restaurants. We integrated various disciplines such as food engineering and chemistry to develop the current form of alternative meats. And that our first plant-based meat “Devotion meat.”

Q. How do you set project goals?

We set up the project goals by concentrating how to achieve our goal. First, we find what we need. And we set a plan how and where to go such as seeking correct market and item etc. So our 3steps of achieving the goal is : finding habitats for our goal – set up KPI – group TF team.

Q. What does the meaning of success for you and your company?

Meaning of success for us is not just achieving our goal. We care of finding right process, checking the plan we set and taking care of the risk on the right moment to achieve our goals. In the progress to seek what we were insufficient of is important thing for us.

Q. What can you actually do for Korean Startups?

If we grow up as we planned that we can give people hope because when we started our business almost everyone that we meet told us that its not going to succeed but we are on our way to succeed now, so if we succeed than we can show other start up that nothing is impossible. 

Q. What companies are competitors and why are they doing well?

Our competitors are Impossible foods and Beyond meat. I don’t think their products are better than ours. But they are one step future than us because the market is different. That’s why they have been leading the plant-based meat industry by testing various ways ahead of us. However, the vegan and plant-based meat market in Korea is growing faster now, that means are going to meet in the same market in the future.

Q. If there have been any issues you've encountered lately, please let us know how you overcame them.

We had issues with adopting our new developed technology to our manufacturing system since we are walking on the path that no one had ever gone through we’ve got to try everything by ourselves. So, we overcame with co operating with our engineering team to build new machinery for our process.

Q. Where do you see your company in three years?

In three years, we are looking forward to see our products in every store that we can easily access to. And we hope that when people think of our company’s products, they perceive them as having advanced technology, having high nutritional value of health and good flavor.

Q. How does your company develop talent?

We develop talent by giving employees the chance to perform with motivation.

Thank you for your time today. We wish Dvotion's endless development.