[DigitalToday reporter Shin-hye Ahn] "Food has to reach the consumer's kitchen when it tastes best. If that value is damaged, competitiveness declines."

The explanation from an official met on March 27 during Harim's Food Road tour in Iksan, North Jeolla Province, was immediately borne out inside FirstKitchen. At Harim Industrial's FirstKitchen food plant complex, frozen, chilled and ambient foods did not go outdoors even once from the early stages of production until they were loaded onto delivery trucks. Products that have just come off the line do not scatter into external logistics networks. Storage, packing and dispatch run along a single route.

During the FirstKitchen tour, visitors moved through indoor routes to all three production plants: K1 (main foods), K2 (rice) and K3 (ramen). Crossing the bridges connecting the plants, they could see conveyor belts installed next to them to move products. The official said Harim's food philosophy that "only the freshest ingredients can come in, and only the best taste can go out" is reflected in Harim Industrial's FirstKitchen food plants.

Harim's entry into the fresh food market through its grocery app OddGrocer was underpinned by FBH (Fulfilment by Harim), a fulfilment centre directly connected to production plants. Harim launched the fresh food platform OddGrocer in September last year. OddGrocer was built on Harim's food philosophy that "the essential value of food lies in taste, and the best taste comes from fresh ingredients."

FBH was inspired by Amazon's FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon), which handles inbounding, packing and delivery directly. Harim judged that a fulfilment centre directly linked to production plants was essential to deliver fresh taste by keeping, as much as possible, the "peak time" for flavour that it defines by ingredient. Harim invested 150 billion won and built FBH, a five-storey facility with a total floor area of 64,157 square metres, from 2021 through last year.

A Harim official at the site said consumers often think food is fresh if it arrives quickly, but it passes through distribution processes and multiple distribution centres. Unpacking and repacking can also affect freshness, the official said.

OddGrocer skips intermediate distribution and delivers directly from the production plant to the home, with peak-time delivery as a feature. The peak times Harim defines by ingredient include: 0 days after eggs are laid; 0 days after chicken is slaughtered; 0 days after duck is slaughtered; 5 days after pork is slaughtered; and optimal aging days by cut for beef.

Harim says it was able to launch OddGrocer through the FirstKitchen system, in which each product's production plant and the fulfilment centre are connected as one by conveyor belt. OddGrocer's core system is "C2C (Cut To Consume)," and Harim introduced OddGrocer with the goal of directly managing the entire process for ingredients.

The FBH process observed on site started on the fifth-floor packing preparation room. Packaged products moved down to the first-floor shipping bay via a spiral conveyor belt, where they were loaded onto delivery trucks. When an order comes in through the OddGrocer app, an OMS (order management system) automatically pulls order data and prepares optimal delivery boxes by product.

Inside FBH, packing preparation started on the fifth floor and moved down along the spiral conveyor. Ambient and chilled and frozen products were packed separately by floor, then sealed and labelled at the first-floor shipping bay and loaded onto delivery trucks.

Before the FBH visit, the production process was seen directly at FirstKitchen's K1 (main foods), K2 (rice) and K3 (ramen) plants. That made the process of fresh food being packed quickly and delivered to homes feel more concrete.

Harim built manufacturing facilities within FBH to produce in-house the iceboxes and cushioning materials, ice packs and dry ice needed for packing and delivery. Harim said OddGrocer's competitiveness in keeping products fresh during delivery after production and packing lies in its in-house iceboxes.

Generally, iceboxes used for delivery to consumers are used when packing frozen products. Typically, if a consumer orders all three temperature categories—chilled, frozen and ambient—on one platform, frozen items are packed in an icebox, while chilled and ambient items are shipped in regular paper boxes. In that case, even in a single order, arrival times can differ, and freshness can vary depending on packing.

To prevent that, Harim produces its own iceboxes that can be divided into three sections using partitions. Using the partitions, chilled, frozen and ambient products can be placed in one box to keep each item in the best condition. The partitions can be inserted and removed, and the width of each section can be adjusted to fit the products being delivered.

A Harim official said consumers want to receive each ordered item quickly and all at once, but longer delivery processes can create time gaps between items. The official said FBH's in-house iceboxes make it possible to pack items together in one box, keeping each product fresh while delivering quickly to customers.

As it was time to leave FirstKitchen that day, the uninterrupted route linking the production plants and the logistics centre came to mind. It became clearer that OddGrocer is not simply a service that sends products faster, but a system that ties production and logistics into one flow to keep food at its most delicious moment.