Seven years for one jar: the Korean founder taking high-protein peanut butter to Japan

What comes to mind when you hear “K-food”? Spicy ramen, tteokbokki, cheese-loaded fried chicken. For me, too, it’s usually something red and hot.

The numbers back that up. Korea’s agri-food exports reached $5.38 billion in the first half of 2026, up 5.0% from a year earlier. Ramen alone brought in $935 million, up 27.9%.

Read further into the same government report, though, and another trend appears: demand for sugar-free and plant-based foods. At FOODEX JAPAN in March, Japanese buyers showed interest in high-protein, health-minded foods, according to Korea’s agriculture ministry.

K-food that isn’t spicy and isn’t noodles is heading to Japan. I found one example in an unexpected place.

In early October, Duncan from Hoppers, the team behind the Korea Nomad Gateway program, told me that Korean startups were visiting Japan. One of them was The Veans, which makes peanut butter in Korea.

At 9:45 p.m., after dinner, CEO Kim Aerin sat down with us.

Here’s the short version: BeanCrunchy didn’t start as a protein product. It started with a vegan food culture she discovered in Australia, and a goal of selling what she made abroad.

WHO IS

Kim AerinKim Aerin

CEO, The Veans

“Make food healthier and the taste usually suffers. I wanted a product that gives up neither.”── Kim Aerin, in this interview

1. AbroadDiscovers vegan food in AustraliaWorks in food service for about three years, in a culture where nearly every restaurant has a vegan option
2. Back homeOpens a vegan sandwich shop in KoreaTrains through a government program for new restaurant owners; her bean-based spread becomes a hit
3. NOWCEO, The VeansDevelops BeanCrunchy peanut butter, sold at Korean train-station shops, as corporate gifts and abroad

Kim still reviews everything herself, from product development and ingredient choices to export requirements. Partway through interpreting her story, Duncan couldn’t help adding: “There’s real power in this story.”

We run a food brand in Korea called BeanCrunchy. We’re a startup that also does food-tech R&D to keep raising the nutritional value of our products.

Our main product is a peanut butter with a higher share of protein.

We analyze the nutritional content and keep researching how to raise it. At the same time, we develop the flavor and the recipe, so the product delivers both nutrition and taste.

When you make something healthier, the taste often suffers. So we’ve spent a long time on recipes that boost nutrition without changing the flavor much.

I actually worked in food service in Australia for about three years. That’s where I learned about vegan culture.

Like in Europe, almost every restaurant had a vegan option. I thought Korea would get there too, and that it should, for the sake of diversity.

After I came back to Korea, I opened a vegan sandwich shop. A spread we made from beans became really popular. When I thought about turning it into a product, I knew I wanted to export, so I looked for a spread that could be shipped at room temperature and made only from healthy ingredients. That’s how I realized peanut butter could travel anywhere in the world. If I boosted the protein, I thought people all over the world would love it.

Korea has government programs for people starting restaurants. I joined one called the Youth Kium Restaurant. For about five months, I trained in a real restaurant and created menus. I also took courses on running a small business, and for about a year I kept improving the menu with advice from consultants.

After that, while running the sandwich shop, I kept developing new items. Perfecting the peanut butter’s taste took another one to two years.

An adviser who developed Choco Heim, a snack by the Korean confectioner Crown, helped us create our chocolate peanut butter. With that advice, we arrived at the product we have today.

Put it all together and I have six or seven years of product development behind me.

Korail, Korea’s national railway, has shops in its stations, and that’s mainly where our products are. It’s a bit like being in a duty-free shop.

We also do corporate gifts. We have gift sets, so banks like Hana Bank often reach out to us. As more people liked our products, larger companies’ sales channels started noticing us too. Launching new products through those channels means a lot to us.

There are a lot of stories, but here’s one that’s hard for any startup. When I first started, without really knowing anything, I was cheated by a manufacturer.

Back then, I couldn’t judge a factory. Looking back, the equipment was unthinkable, but I didn’t know. I signed an unreasonable contract, a problem came up when the products were supposed to ship, and it went to court.

It took two years, but I won. It was a hard time, but with help from a lawyer provided through a public program and other government support, it ended well. I think something like this is, to some extent, a rite of passage.

I went to the next factory almost in tears. When I looked into it, that place didn’t have a great reputation either — it turned out to be more of a broker, and the real factory was somewhere else. But the owner felt bad for me and told me the truth. Thanks to that, I ended up working with a proper factory.

That factory was still growing at the time, though, and didn’t yet have experience mass-producing what we’d developed. Our recipe is very precise about ingredient ratios. Once or twice, we had to throw out entire production runs. We got through that period together, and now they’re our longest-standing partner, and we have a great relationship.

At the start, it was just me. Every ingredient varies by where it comes from. Even salt: there’s sea salt, there’s Himalayan pink salt, so many kinds. I tasted each ingredient one by one and built the recipe. That took one to two years, and afterward I reworked it for mass production.

Now we’re building a development team. Even so, I still check every ingredient myself as much as possible. Nothing can go wrong for export, so I’m very strict. That’s why our seaweed chips (gimbugak) launched late, but it means that when they come out, they’ll be healthy and delicious.

I see Japan as a fast-growing market in wellness, in taking care of your health. The population is aging, and the protein category keeps growing. Our products are made from healthy ingredients, so I think we’re a good fit for Japan.

In Korea, people in their 20s and 30s like our brand. With the influence of Korean culture, I think young people in Japan could like it too. We brand for 20- and 30-somethings, but nutritionally it’s a product people in their 50s and 60s would benefit from as well. That’s why I really wanted to enter Japan.

When we spoke with city hall today, they suggested meeting consumers directly through pop-up sales in department stores. I’d love to start that way.

I’d also like to partner with gyms and get into wellness shops. In Korea, we also sell at premium grocery stores, so it would be wonderful if people in Japan could discover our products in stores like that, too.

From vegan options in Australia to a sandwich shop in Korea. From a sandwich spread to export-ready peanut butter. From Korean station kiosks to Japanese department stores and gyms. Kim’s story kept pointing to the next person she wants to reach.

Japan is estimated to be the world’s fourth-largest wellness market (a broad estimate that includes fitness, travel and beauty). Here’s where things could go:

• “Everyday health” joins the K-food shelf
  Next to spicy snacks and noodles sit plant-based foods for breakfast or after the gym. K-food broadens from a thrill to a daily habit.
• Pop-ups become a development lab for Japan
  Feedback from tastings at department stores and gyms becomes data, refining flavor, labels and packaging for Japan.
• One jar, different reasons, every generation
  Younger buyers pick it as a Korean brand; older buyers as an easy source of protein.

How to read this, depending on who you are

• If you’re a food or retail buyer: After spicy food and noodles, plant-based, high-protein foods look like a good match for health-focused aisles and gift shelves. A small pop-up with tastings and data is an easy place to start
• If you run a gym or wellness business: Single-serve sticks work as a post-workout bite. There’s room to go beyond stocking the product, and build menus or experiences together
• If you’re a student thinking about a startup: Kim’s path was step by step: government training, a shop, a product, then exports — including hard-to-teach lessons like choosing a factory. It’s a useful map for anyone starting a physical-product business

Kim didn’t pick peanut butter because it was trending. It ships at room temperature, keeps for a long time and can be made only from healthy ingredients. She chose the product by working backward from what could travel. For food companies aiming overseas, “what can we ship” is as important a starting point as “what tastes good.” That order matters.

She trained through a government program for new restaurant owners and, in court, was helped by a lawyer provided through a public program. Korea’s startup support kept showing up in her story. Public systems quietly backed a challenge she started alone. There’s a lot here for anyone thinking about how to support founders in Japan.

Offer samples, turn feedback into data, adjust the flavor and the pitch. Using monthly pop-ups as a place to test rather than just sell is exactly what helps when entering a country with a different language and different tastes. Korean food refined by Japanese consumers’ feedback, sitting on Japanese shelves — that’s a day I’m looking forward to.