Korea’s Pulmuone secures deal to supply plant-based food products to 18 universities in the US

Pulmuone, a South Korean plant-based food manufacturing giant, has expanded its partnership with UMass Dining. It was agreed in the expansion deal that Pulmuone would be supplying plant-based products to 18 university campuses in the United States.

Pulmuone confirmed the agreement between its American affiliate, Pulmuone Foods USA, and UMass Dining on Tuesday, Dec. 13. The plant-based food producer entered the US market in 2014 and started working with the college food service providers in the same year. It also started providing plant-based products to the University of Massachusetts Amherst in November of last year.

As per The Korea Herald, the latest agreement will have Pulmuone delivering vegan steaks and other plant-based food to universities and restaurant chains in the U.S. Moreover, it was mentioned that with the new contract with UMass Dining, more than a dozen universities in the States were added to the business portfolio of Pulmuone. These campuses are located throughout the Eastern and Western coasts of the country.

In any case, the demand for plant-based food items in the U.S. has been rising continuously; thus, this market is obviously growing. In fact, it was reported that it is growing 16% every year in the last three years, between 2018 and 2021. This data was obtained from the Plant-Based Foods Association.

The interest in vegan food is expanding in many parts of the world, too and partly, this was due to people’s wish to shift to healthier food alternatives while also helping with the reduction of carbon emissions.

This is one reason why Pulmuone has been successful in the U.S., with its products already being sold on major supermarket chains in the region, including Vons, Albertsons, and Pavillions.

“Our plan is to leverage the steady demand from university food service chains and the recovering industry of restaurants to expand the overall volume of our B2B business in the U.S.,” Pulmuone Foods USA’s chief executive officer, Cho Gil Soo, said in a statement.

The Korea Economic Daily further quoted the CEO as saying, "We plan to expand the scope of our B2B business by targeting university lunch programs, which offer steady demand, and the restaurant channel, which is forecast to grow rapidly in the post-COVID-19 era."