JEOLLABUK-DO < invest Korea

Harim Group, Korea’s leading livestock and animal feed company, aims to add ready-to-eat meal and natural seasoning businesses to its portfolio to grow to a comprehensive food processing company, Harim Chairman Kim Hong-kuk said on Saturday.

To achieve the goal, the company will invest about 600 billion won ($533.4 million) by 2019 to build ready-to-eat meal and natural seasoning factories on a site of 165,200 square meters in Iksan, North Jeolla that it already purchased, Kim said during an interview with Maeil Business Newspaper in Monaco where he visited to speak at Ernst & Young (EY)’s World Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

“We will start building five factories within the year and the new factories are expected to create more than 1,000 jobs in the area,” Kim said.

Harim Group, owner of 58 affiliates and Korea’s market-leading producer of processed poultry, pork, and animal feed, joined the top-30 conglomerate list last May in Korea after it successfully made inroads into the grain distribution business with the takeover of bulk carrier Pan Ocean in 2015. With the addition of ready-to-eat meal and natural seasoning sectors to its business portfolio, the group will likely become a fully vertically integrated company.

Upon completion of the new factories in Iksan, it will dedicate the existing factories to poultry processing and the new ones mainly for ready-to-eat meal production, Kim said.

“The company will strive to become a premier food company using all-natural ingredients by investing in facility expansion and seeking mergers and acquisition opportunities,” Kim added.


Harim Chairman Kim Hong-kuk

By Moon Il-ho

Copyrights Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea. All Rights Reserved.

Source: Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea (Jun. 12, 2017)