2024-03-02 21:41:29
The secret to success of Jinhyuk Kwon, CEO of ‘Nutrione’
“I can’t hear at all in my right ear. It’s been a while since I started having problems with my eyesight. About 10 years ago, I suffered sudden hearing loss due to extreme stress and overwork, but I was so busy preparing for listing that I mightn’t go to the hospital. I lost my hearing because I missed treatment time. I think that if you want to start a business and get it on a stable track and grow it, you have to put your whole body into it. “Business is war.” <권진혁 뉴트리원 대표>
Enlarge photo Kwon Jin-hyuk, CEO of Nutrione. <사진 제공=뉴트리원>
In the ‘inner beauty’ market, there is a company that has grown rapidly with annual sales approaching 200 billion won. ‘BB Lab’, well known as ‘Lee Hyori Collagen’, is a collagen development and sales company called ‘Nutrione’.
Nutrione, founded in 2012 by CEO Kwon Jin-hyuk, has grown rapidly by introducing various health functional foods (health food) one following another, starting with ‘BB Lab’ collagen. With sales of approximately 170 billion won as of last year, BB Lab Collagen, the flagship product, has been particularly popular among young women in their 20s and 30s since its launch in 2019, with approximately 510 million packets sold cumulatively as of last year.
Inner beauty is a compound word of the English word ‘inner’, meaning inside, and ‘beauty’, meaning beauty. It is a new term created in the cosmetics and beauty industry to mean ‘edible cosmetics’, meaning that in order to become beautiful, applying cosmetics alone is not enough, and you must eat nutrients that improve your skin.
As the inner beauty market grows, health functional food companies rush to launch various inner beauty foods. One of them is collagen, and Nutrione’s BB Lab Collagen once received a lot of attention from women as ‘Jeon Ji-hyun Collagen’. Famous actress Jeon Ji-hyun served as the product model, but recently the model was changed to singer Lee Hyo-ri. Now it is called ‘Lee Hyori Collagen’.
Nutrione’s brands are △BB Lab (inner beauty brand) △Nutrione Life (comprehensive health functional food brand) △164 (eye health specialty brand) △Le Secret (comprehensive inner beauty brand for middle-aged women) △Vitaschnell (Germany) There are 7 of them, including △Dipeto (specialized pet nutrition brand) △My Puzzle (personalized health functional food subscription service brand).
As of the end of last year, Nutrione products were exported to more than 80 countries, including the United States, Japan, China, Singapore, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Taiwan. Nutrione products are sold in offline stores throughout the world. Representative brands include H Mart in the US, ‘Sasa’ in Hong Kong and Macao, ‘Guardian’ in Singapore, ‘Watsons’ in Malaysia, ‘City Care’ in Myanmar, and ‘She’. Nutrione products are sold at stores such as ‘Shwe Ohh Pharmacy’, ‘Medicare’, and ‘Clover’.
Enlarge photo ‘Low molecule collagen intensive’ from Nutrione’s inner beauty brand ‘BB Lab’. <사진 제공=뉴트리원>
Key brands that generate a lot of sales are ‘BB Lab’ and ‘164’. As the population ages and more people say their eyesight has declined due to frequent use of computers and mobile phones, the market for healthy foods that help with eye health is also growing.
“Nutrione’s eye health specialty brand ‘164’ is growing rapidly, and its representative product ‘Lutein and Zeaxanthin 164’ is a health food that contains lutein and zeaxanthin, components of the macula of the eye, in a ratio of 16:4, which is the same as the blood concentration in the body. “As a result, sales volume is steadily increasing.”
Increase brand awareness and convenience of consumption
Emphasis on the ‘necessity of collagen intake’
Increased sales due to reasonable prices
What is the secret to BB Lab Collagen’s success in Korea’s highly competitive ‘inner beauty’ market?
Jinhyuk Kwon, CEO of Nutrione, cited strengthening brand awareness and developing products that take consumers’ convenience into consideration. When Nutrione launched ‘BB Lab’ collagen in 2019, it selected actress and top star Jeon Ji-hyun as its product model.
“BB Lab was the first in the inner beauty industry to actively strengthen brand awareness through a top star, and was the first in the industry to develop collagen in various forms such as powder and jelly, increasing the convenience of intake. “We developed low-molecular-weight fish collagen with a sweet and sour fruity taste without the unique fishy taste, so that anyone, regardless of age or gender, can easily consume collagen anytime, anywhere, and it seems to have been well-received by consumers.”
Emphasizing the importance of collagen intake also had a positive effect on increasing product sales.
“Collagen is very important as it not only makes up skin, joints, and bones, but is also the main component of the dermal layer of the skin. BB Lab has established itself as a leading collagen brand by actively informing consumers regarding the importance of collagen and the need for its intake. In addition to the reasonable price (currently around 20,000 won per container) that makes it easy to take 1 packet a day consistently, we achieved cumulative sales of 50 billion won in regarding a year following launch.”
Distribution expert who imported French bottled water ‘Evian’
Established ‘Nutribiotech’ with 30 million won
‘Serial entrepreneur’ who was listed, sold, and re-started a business
How did Jinhyuk Kwon, CEO of Nutrione, become a successful businessman? CEO Kwon is quite famous in the health functional food industry. He is also a ‘serial entrepreneur’ who has founded and managed several companies.
He joined Hanbo Group in 1995 and was in charge of Hanbo Group’s new business, including the introduction of high-quality French bottled water ‘Evian’ into Korea.
“In 1995, there was no market for purchasing water in our country. At that time, the perception that ‘someone pays money to buy water’ was widespread. I was in charge of a new business project to import and distribute ‘Evian’ in Korea, and I thought regarding how to create a bottled water market. After winning the exclusive import rights for Evian in Korea, we used a strategy to put Evian in ‘minibars (small refrigerators that sell alcohol, soda, snacks, etc.)’ in hotel rooms.”
He was sincere and hard-working, and was also faithful to his corporate life. However, he felt that he would not be able to escape his poverty if he lived his entire life as an office worker. When the foreign exchange crisis (IMF) broke out in 1997, real estate prices in Korea plummeted and interest rates soared, he chose a different path from others and purchased real estate.
There were people who tried to stop him because it was a time when many companies were going bankrupt and many people became unemployed overnight. However, his counter-thinking strategy was successful, and he raised seed money for the business through real estate investment. He resigned in 2001. The following year, he established ‘Nutri Biotech (now Cosmax NBT)’ with 30 million won and transformed into an entrepreneur.
Cosmax NBT is an affiliate of the Cosmax Group, which owns the global cosmetics manufacturer development and production (ODM) company ‘Cosmax’, and is a health functional food ODM company. Cosmax NBT is a KOSDAQ listed company and recorded sales of 328.2 billion won and operating profit of 2.2 billion won on a consolidated basis in 2022.
In 2002, Nutribiotech started as a company that planned and sold a variety of products, including medicines, cosmetics, home appliances, and household goods. We also ran a business where we hired an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) company to produce and supply the product according to the customer’s request.
“At some point, I thought I should build my own factory and go into manufacturing myself, rather than entrusting the production to other factories. So, in 2007, we purchased the factory land and prepared to manufacture health functional foods. We received a request from a customer for OEM, or consignment production, and launched our first lactic acid bacteria product in early 2008. However, in the same year, the company was hit hard by the global financial crisis and suffered losses. “My finances were tight, and I had to sell the house I lived in to barely survive each day.”
Representative Kwon gritted his teeth. The best way to increase sales was by securing new customers. Among health functional food sales companies and pharmaceutical companies, he found a company that did not directly produce health functional foods in its own factories but outsourced production to OEM/ODM companies. Among these companies, there were companies that were suffering from big and small problems that occurred during the consignment production process, and as we took on the consignment production and solved their problems, the number of new customers increased. Nutribiotech succeeded in improving its surplus in 2009 and has been on a growth path.
Founder and CEO Kwon Jin-hyuk sold part of his shares in Nutribiotech to Cosmax Group in 2014. Even following selling his shares, he served as CEO of Nutri Biotech. He listed Nutribiotech on the KOSDAQ market in 2015. Afterwards, CEO Kwon sold his shares of Nutribiotech through on- and over-the-counter sales in 2019. Nutribiotech changed its name to its current name, Cosmax NBT, in March 2019.
“When I was preparing for the listing, I suddenly suffered from sudden hearing loss in one ear due to extreme stress and excessive work. If you experience sudden hearing loss, you should immediately go to the hospital and receive treatment. I was too busy at the time to go to the hospital. Because I missed treatment, I lost hearing in one ear. If there is a God, it means that we should do our best every day.”
While working in the health functional food OEM/ODM business, I wanted to try my own brand business. This is why I started Nutrione.
CEO Kwon does not stop at selling health functional foods but is constantly making new attempts to secure new growth engines for Nutrione. He established an in-house venture last year and is discovering new food sources, and established a subsidiary company, ‘Deeprup’ in 2002, to develop and sell household goods such as cosmetics, pet supplies, and diffusers. He plans to more actively explore overseas markets this year. This is due to the judgment that the company will inevitably face limitations in its growth if it relies solely on the domestic market due to Korea’s population decline.
“Helping everyone live a healthy and happy life is the reason for Nutrione’s existence. “We will continue to conduct research with health experts such as doctors, pharmacists, and nutritionists to introduce high-quality health functional foods and take the lead in creating a healthy and happy tomorrow for people.”
Reporter Shin Soo-hyeon
* Namdonnamsan is a series section that introduces products that have sold well, the background to why they became popular, and the company’s management strategy. Click ‘+Subscribe’ on the reporter’s page below to read the article without missing a thing. If there are any of our products that are loved by consumers and are selling well, please let us know.
* You can see the process of making ‘Nutri One’ collagen (Hyori Lee Collagen) on YouTube ‘Factory 5F’. This is the first time that the Nutrione collagen production process is being disclosed in detail.
1709421922
#Lee #Hyori #eats #secret #company #annual #sales #billion #won #남돈남산
