An aerial view of Harim's chicken processing plant in Iksan, North Jeolla Province / Courtesy of Harim

By Kim Jae-heun

Harim, the country's top poultry firm, is expanding its food business beyond chicken to instant noodles, instant rice and meal kit products produced at its renovated smart factories in Iksan, North Jeolla Province.

In 2019, Harim spent 260 billion won ($180.5 million) to renovate its smart factory with state-of-the-art meat processing facilities. The company's goal is to produce the freshest chicken by completing the whole preparation process from slaughter to manufacture within 24 hours.

The poultry firm currently holds the largest share ― 31.3 percent ― in the domestic chicken market, which it credits it to its differentiated meat processing technology.

Unlike other poultry firms that use electricity to put chickens down before slaughtering them, Harim uses carbonic acid gas to prevent damage to capillaries in the meat.

"If you shock chickens with electricity, it will leave bleeding marks on the meat and diminish its freshness. However, our 'gas stunning' technology allows blood in a chicken's capillaries to get discharged cleanly ― enabling the meat to stay tender and chewy," a Harim official said.

Slaughtered chickens hang in the "air chilling" room, which keeps the meat temperature down to 2 degrees Celsius, at Harim's production facility in Iksan, North Jeolla Province, Sept. 28. Courtesy of Harim

Harim also uses a technique called "air chilling" to keep the chicken meat moist by instantly bringing its temperature down to 2 Celsius degrees for 200 minutes.

"Other companies put the chicken meat in a pool of ice water to refrigerate it after slaughter, which may help it to look fresh for a few hours. However, this procedure eventually sucks water out of the meat and further leaves a chance for foot-and-mouth disease to spread," the official added.

All of Harim's chicken meat processing facilities maintain a temperature of 8 degrees Celsius to keep its products fresh.

Nine kilometers away from its chicken meat processing plant in Iksan, there is another smart factory called "First Kitchen," built for the company's processed foods. Harim invested 450 billion won in setting it up last April.

Here, Harim uses only natural food ingredients harvested in the Jeolla Province region to make instant noodles, cooked rice and other meal kits. In particular, the company produces instant cooked rice products in "clean rooms" at its K3 factory, maintaining a cleanliness level similar to that of a semiconductor plant.

"Our products' prices could become more expensive compared to those of other food firms due to the longer production process and the installation of updated facilities, but we cannot give up on our company's motto to make the best food," a Harim official said.