[Report] From Chicken Made with Paengi Mushrooms to Autonomous Tractors... 'AFRO 2023'

First Agricultural Food Tech Startup Expo Held from 26th to 28th
Featuring Food Tech, AgTech, Smart Farm, and Green Bio Startups

The 1st "Agri-Food Tech Startup Expo" (AFRO 2023) is being held from the 26th to the 28th at COEX Hall A in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.

On the 27th, the COEX A Hall exhibition center in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul was visited. The 1st "Agri-food Tech Startup Expo" (AFRO 2023) is being held here until the 28th. Over 250 participants including startups in the fields of food tech, agtech, smart farms, and green bio, as well as public institutions, large corporations, and investment firms are taking part.

Throughout the exhibition hall, companies were busy setting up booths to introduce their products and services. At the 'Hunik' booth, CEO Park Jin-ah and employees were making salads and burritos using chicken alternative meat. Hunik is a startup that developed the alternative meat "Wise Meat" using plant-based ingredients such as enoki mushrooms. Wise Meat, which has a soft and moist texture, tasted very similar to chicken thigh meat. CEO Park said, "Alternative meat is popular not only among vegetarians but also consumers interested in healthy diets," adding, "There is a lot of interest overseas as well, so we plan to enter the North American market next year."

Park Jin-ah, CEO of Hunik, is introducing the company's products, including the chicken alternative meat 'Wise Meat'.

At another booth, 'Green Continue' was a startup producing eco-friendly fabrics from agricultural by-products such as cactus leaves, tangerine peels, and apple peels. They extract cellulose (fiber) from agricultural by-products and produce synthetic leather through an eco-friendly manufacturing process without using chemicals. The booth displayed black leather jackets and bags made from plant-based fabric. The texture of the clothing was similar to cowhide leather. CEO Jeon In-ho of Green Continue explained, "Plant-based fabric is more resistant to scratches than cowhide leather," and added, "It is eco-friendly because it does not emit solid waste or high-concentration chemical waste like regular leather."

Jeon In-ho, CEO of Green Continue, is wearing a leather jacket made from fibers extracted from cactus leaves while introducing the company's products.

The green bio startup based on traditional Korean medicine, Camelo Tech, was also interesting. Camelo Tech developed an automation system for traditional herbal medicine preparation, packaging, washing, and sterilization. They provide standardized herbal medicine in cartridge form for each raw material to traditional Korean medical institutions. Just like replacing toner when printer ink runs out, Korean medicine doctors can purchase cartridges when a specific medicine runs out. CEO Jeong Won-cheol of Camelo Tech said, "Unlike Western hospitals where tasks are divided, traditional Korean medicine hospitals handle hospital, pharmacy, and pharmaceutical company tasks in one place, and all work is done manually by people," adding, "Perhaps influenced by growing up with Korean medicine doctor parents, I wanted to improve these issues and started this business."

Jung Won-cheol, CEO of Camellotech, is introducing the traditional Korean medicine pharmaceutical automation system.

On one side of the exhibition hall, there was a booth displaying a large tractor with wheels about the height of an adult man. This was the startup 'Gint,' which developed the agricultural autonomous driving kit 'Pluva Auto.' Pluva Auto consists of a main controller, auto-steer, one-touch switch, and interface box. Inside the tractor, all kit components except the main controller were installed. The GPS-based main controller is mounted on the tractor roof. Farmers can install Pluva Auto on their tractors, rice transplanters, cultivators, and other agricultural machinery to use autonomous driving functions via a smartphone application. It supports plowing, rotary tilling, and no-till cover crop operations. Yu Gap-jae, manager of Gint's B2C business division, said, "Currently, autonomous driving only supports forward movement, but we plan to add reverse and turning functions," and added, "We launched the product last year and have already supplied it to over 500 farms."

A tractor brought into the booth at the 'AFRO 2023' event by the startup 'Gint,' which developed the autonomous driving kit for agriculture, 'Pluva Auto.'

In some areas of the event venue, the Korea Agricultural Technology Promotion Agency and Post Office Shopping were conducting live shopping. They helped customers purchase startup products online immediately and actively promoted the event through various certification events.

At AFRO 2023, various side events were also held to connect companies, government, investors, and startups. Currently, the domestic startup investment market is in a cold spell. Among them, the domestic agri-food sector is in an even more difficult situation. According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, last year, new venture investment in the agri-food sector was 124.6 billion KRW, accounting for only 1% of the total venture investment scale (12.6 trillion KRW). Han Hoon, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, said in his congratulatory speech, "Our agriculture is transforming into a future growth industry by integrating advanced technologies such as IT, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence (AI)," and added, "I hope this expo will be a meaningful occasion contributing to innovating our agri-food venture startup ecosystem."

Officials from the Korea Agricultural Technology Promotion Agency and Korea Post Shopping are conducting live shopping at 'AFRO 2023'.

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