Korea emerges as global hub for food tech innovation

Technology is reshaping nearly every stage of how we eat — from distribution and selection to purchase and consumption. Lunch arrives with a tap on a delivery app. Groceries appear at the door hours after an online order. Some consumers now pay using nothing more than their face, while others ask artificial intelligence (AI) assistants what to eat or which coffee beans suit their taste. For Lee Ki-won, a food tech professor at Seoul National University (SNU), this is not a passing phase but a preview of where the global food industry is headed. With an academic background in food science and biotechnology, he founded the FoodTech Department at SNU six years ago and runs the FoodTech Emergence Center on campus, where students are trained to build food tech businesses. Food tech refers to technologies applied to food consumption and distribution, which Lee distinguishes from traditional food technology. “Food technology has more to do with production, using engineering and science, often traditional science,” Lee told The Korea Times in an interview in Seoul, Feb. 9. “Food tech is a