Shinsegae Food debuts plant-based canned ham

Shinsegae Food unveiled its newest product on Thursday, July 28, and this will be a stepping stone for the company as it plans to enter the global meat alternative market. The South Korean leader in the domestic meal service market launches its own plant-based canned ham this week.

Shisegae Food will scale up its global food business through the new vegan ham. To achieve this goal, the company will be releasing the product overseas under its US-based subsidiary, Better Foods.

According to The Korea Herald, the company’s American subsidiary is set to officially open next month. This is a company that will focus on alternative food, which will be at its forefront as it targets the overseas market.

Shinsegae Food has been in the food business for more than two decades, and it is implementing some changes in an effort to expand outside of South Korea. In addition to its meal service products, the company will also focus on premium meal service and the production of meat alternatives.

“Hormel Foods’ Spam has dominated the global canned ham market since 1926,” Shinsegae Food’s chief executive officer, Song Hyun Suk, said during a recent press conference explaining why it produced the plant-based ham. “But in almost 100 years, we have become the first to make a vegan canned ham that has almost the same taste and texture.”

The CEO added that Shinsegae Food will “invest $10 million by early next year to establish the global infrastructure needed to produce plant-based meat products and adopt research and development technology from the US, one of the major countries for alternative meat.”

Yonhap News Agency reported that the company has been supplying its cold-cut ham products to many businesses such as the Starbucks coffee chain and the cafeterias of major companies like SK hynix. Shinsegae Food started to deliver to these outlets after launching its vegan meat brand called Better Meat last year.

Meanwhile, Shisegae Food’s new plant-based canned ham is made with animal-free ingredients, including soy and vegetable oil. The company said it does not have sodium nitrite as well, so this is a good product for vegans.

The said chemical compound is a type of food preservative that also creates the pink color of processed meats. It should be noted that the World Health Organization labeled sodium nitrite as a first-class cancer-causing agent in 2015.