Lotte Food Opens Subsidiary-Type Standard Workplace for the Disabled 'FoodWith'

At the FoodWith opening ceremony held on the 1st at Lotte Food Cheongju Factory, participants are cutting the ribbon. From the 6th person from the left: Jo Jong-ran, President of Korea Employment Agency for the Disabled; Cho Kyung-soo, CEO of Lotte Food; Kim Jong-gil, CEO of FoodWith; and a representative employee of FoodWith.

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Sunghye] Lotte Foods is taking the lead in employing people with disabilities by opening a subsidiary-type standard workplace for the disabled called ‘FoodWith’.

Lotte Foods announced on the 2nd that it held the opening ceremony of FoodWith, a subsidiary-type standard workplace, at its Cheongju factory the day before. The ceremony was attended by Cho Kyungsoo, CEO of Lotte Foods; Cho Jongran, President of the Korea Employment Agency for the Disabled; Lee Sangtaek, Director of the Chungbuk branch of the Korea Employment Agency for the Disabled; Kim Jonggil, CEO of FoodWith; and FoodWith employees.

Through this establishment, Lotte Foods newly hired 20 people with disabilities (10 with severe disabilities). Reflecting this, the number of disabled workers at Lotte Foods reached 89, achieving a disability employment rate of 4.1%, far exceeding the legal mandatory employment rate of 3.1% for large corporations.

In December last year, Lotte Foods signed an agreement with the Korea Employment Agency for the Disabled at its headquarters in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, to establish a subsidiary-type standard workplace for the disabled. Subsequently, in January this year, it established the subsidiary FoodWith, and through this opening ceremony, it officially launched.

FoodWith is responsible for packaging fish sausage at the Cheongju factory. To facilitate smooth work performance, Lotte Foods remodeled the fish meat production line at the Cheongju factory to install convenience facilities for people with disabilities and established an automated packaging line for kiss sticks. Although it took a long time for people with developmental disabilities and others to acquire the work skills, they were trained steadily for two months from early this year to develop their job capabilities.

The subsidiary-type standard workplace system for the disabled was introduced in 2008 to present a new employment model for large corporations that find it difficult to directly employ people with disabilities, aiming to provide better jobs for people with disabilities. When a parent company establishes a subsidiary that meets employment requirements for the purpose of hiring, the disabled employees hired by the subsidiary are counted toward the parent company’s employment rate. Currently, the legal mandatory employment rate for people with disabilities in private large corporations is 3.1%, and the government plans to gradually increase this to 3.5% by 2024.

Meanwhile, Lotte Foods signed an agreement with the Korea Employment Agency for the Disabled in 2013 to promote employment of people with disabilities, and from January 2014, it converted the cotton packaging production line at its Cheonan factory into a line exclusively for employing people with disabilities, expanding their hiring. Since then, it has continued to develop jobs, improve facilities, and provide education for executives and employees to further expand employment of people with disabilities.

At the opening ceremony, FoodWith employee representative Lee Sangmi (22) said, “I was very worried because it is my first job, but after two months of practice, I gained confidence in working at the company,” and added, “I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who worked hard.”

Cho Kyungsoo, CEO of Lotte Foods, said, “We are pleased to provide quality jobs for people with disabilities through the establishment of FoodWith,” and added, “We will do our best to cooperate so that FoodWith can enhance its own competitiveness and add new value to our society.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.