“The violinist was put into the tofu factory as a relief pitcher.”
– There is a person who leaves The Juilliard School in the United States, a prestigious performing arts field, and runs a tofu company. The main character is Jo Sung-eun (56), CEO of S&Food. After graduating from Juilliard School, Cho received a doctorate in music (DMA) from New Jersey State University. Kim Dae-jin (59), a pianist and conductor, is a professor at the Korea National University of Arts. On the 25th at the JoongAng Ilbo in Sangam-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, I met with CEO Cho and heard about the business.
CEO Cho started the tofu business in 2017. Cho’s father, who founded Seoul Spice, the No. 1 perfume industry in Korea, founded S&Food in 2013 to make tofu, but it was recording a deficit of 3 billion won every year. CEO Cho said, “In a word, I went out as a’saving pitcher’.” He raised sales of 27 billion won last year, just three years later, and turned the business that was in the red into a surplus.
Immediately after taking charge of the company, Cho began to identify the cause of the deficit. In addition to excessive facility investment, employees’ work discipline was also weakened. As the parent company was strong, there was a prevalent atmosphere that the deficit could not be ruined by me. The sales structure was also bad, such as supplying most of the production to one affiliated food company. The staff’s gaze at Cho was also negative. There was a lot of disbelief that the woman who was playing music knows what.
S&Food Jo Sung-eun. Photo S&Food
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“There was a mistake that it couldn’t be ruined like this.”
– CEO Cho said, “If the deficit continues, the company has to close within two years.” It declared independence from Seoul Spice to strike’Drainage Jin’. Employees who felt insecure continued to leave. The plant manager as well as all salespeople (8 people) left the company. As salespeople left the company, the annual sales fell from 20 billion won to 16 billion won.
The life of eating and sleeping in a factory almost began. I traveled 160km from my house in Seongnam, Gyeonggi-do to Jincheon, Chungbuk, where the factory is located. Representative Cho recalled, “I traveled 100,000 km in 3 years.” I chose and focused to save the company. First of all, to increase productivity, the tofu items were reduced to two, 120g and 300g. Previously, it produced tofu in five sizes, including 300g. The management of the customer was also changed in a way that CEO Cho himself did. Currently, there are only four salespeople of S&Food.
Despite the deficit, the quality did not give up. He called a specialized company to manage hygiene every two weeks, and made efforts to develop products with its own research team. There are five patents filed by S&Food. Thanks to this, there are products that are difficult to find in other companies, such as soy milk, which is a combination of ginseng and other wild vegetables in soybean curd. There was also an excuse for’Cho Seongcheol’. This is the name given by the employees for working repressively like a man.
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S&Food CEO Jo Sung-eun (left) and partner Kim Hyang-hwa, no-brand. S&Food’s tofu was sold only at E-Mart No-Brand last year, worth 500 million won a month. Photo S&Food
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Little by little, the effort led to results. In particular, collaboration with E-Mart no-brands became wings. Now, even if orders are pushed, they cannot be filled. The daily production amount is about 85,000 (300g), but orders come in 130,000 each. Before joining hands with No-Brand, it produced about 18,000 heads a day. S&Food, which had recorded a deficit for eight years in a row since the company was founded, turned to the black for the first time last year. Currently, it expects a surplus of about KRW 1.5 billion with sales of KRW 27 billion. It is expected to generate more than 30 billion won in sales this year.
His ultimate goal is to diversify soy products as much as possible. It plans to introduce yogurt made with soybeans, and Sunsik made by hot air drying bean curd powder in addition to soybean cheese. The current 75% factory utilization rate is aimed at raising the utilization rate to more than 100%.
