Kim Hee-gyeom CEO of agricultural company Gaya Bio Co.

The ‘value spending’ trend is making its way into consumers' shopping carts. Sales of products with environmental and animal welfare claims continue to grow. From a market share of 41 TP3T in 2010, the market share of cage-free eggs grew sevenfold to 281 TP3T in 2020, just 10 years later.
Kim Hee-gyeom, CEO of Gaya Bio, an agricultural company, saw the movement and urgency of this change early on and has been leading the introduction of ESG in the livestock sector under the vision of ‘good livestock'.

GayaBio creates social impact in the agriculture and livestock sector under the banner of ’Good Livestock'

Founded in 2018, Gaya Bio is a leading ESG company in the livestock sector that aims to create a win-win situation for people, the environment, and animals. As a biotechnology application research group that has been promoting R&D and industrialization in all areas of livestock, Gaya Bio aims to provide ‘Tech-Food through Tech-Feed‘ and ‘livestock solutions’ through the convergence of livestock industry and biotechnology under the vision of 'Good Livestock'.
To this end, we have built a business model that provides functional feed, livestock improvement solutions, and food preservatives to B2B and value-added tech-food to B2C, centered on four core technologies: specialty feed, microbiome, nanoparticles, and animal vaccines.

Mr. Kim presented a blueprint to create functional feeds based on GayaBio's unique technology and feed them to livestock to create social impacts represented by the environment, health, and ethics. Specifically, in the environmental sector, the company develops and produces feed that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and livestock odors; in the health sector, the company develops and produces feed that reduces antibiotics for livestock and enhances omega-3 in the body; and in the ethical sector, the company develops and produces feed that reduces stress on animals to achieve animal welfare and good consumption. Mr. Kim explained that through innovation in manufacturing and distribution structure, the company supplies functional feeds at reasonable prices and helps producers (livestock farmers) and consumers realize eco-friendly production and consumption at a lower cost.

Kaya Bao has been focusing its R&D capabilities on establishing a vision of ‘good livestock farming' since four years ago, when the term ESG was unfamiliar. Good animal husbandry is a concept that encompasses healthier food, cleaner and safer food, more ethical and conscientious food, animal husbandry that helps society and the environment, and sustainable agriculture. Kim, who says that good livestock farming is ESG, said that when the company was founded, many people were skeptical that introducing ESG would only increase costs, but the company has been guided by the conviction that ESG is the way forward. He is convinced that better food based on ESG will not only improve the environment, health, and society, but also lead to lower social costs.

“We believe that only a company with longevity can achieve what it wants to achieve, especially in the livestock industry, where tradition and future innovation coexist, and we decided that we could not change centuries-old traditions overnight. We first convinced farmers with well-tested feeds, while simultaneously developing a variety of items in line with the principle of ‘good animal husbandry” to minimize risks."

‘Good livestock' keyword found in consumer trends... government support assures direction

“The GAYABIO research team has a broad interest in society as a whole beyond the livestock industry. Starting with me, the CEO, who majored in business, I developed an eye for reading the market by analyzing the consumption trends of the entire nation to create better products. Consumption is closely related to social and economic changes. I believe that the agricultural industry in the future will change from economics and producer-centered to value and consumer-centered.”

After majoring in business administration as an undergraduate, Mr. Kim worked in strategic planning at a large Korean financial conglomerate before realizing the potential of the agricultural industry and challenging the feed industry. He then worked for a local feed company overseas for seven years, traveling around China and Southeast Asia in product development and sales.
More than 80 products based on various natural substances that were not introduced at the time are used in Korea and abroad. After returning to Korea, he pursued a master's program in animal biotechnology and saw the future of animal husbandry science. He said he started the venture with the vision of ‘good animal husbandry" to overcome the limitations of the traditional feed industry and animal husbandry.

For Mr. Kim, who has been pursuing a career in entrepreneurship for a long time, GAYABAIO, a sustainable livestock company, is the company he envisioned. Under the two keywords of ‘self-direction‘ and 'contribution', he has been challenging himself to choose the right path and has established a model where the products made by the company contribute to society in a small way. Mr. Kim said he will create a livestock industry that is closer to consumers and the market. His vision has been cemented by various government supports. To date, the company has been selected for six support projects, including the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs' Venture Development Support Program and the Korean Intellectual Property Office's IP Nara project, and has completed the development of three omega-balanced livestock products: eggs, milk, and pork.

Recently, the company was selected as one of the ‘National 1000 Innovative Companies’ by the Financial Services Commission and 12 government ministries, which considers the characteristics, technology, and growth of each industry sector. Kim said he is proud of the achievement as it is a recognition of GayaBio's technology and growth potential. GayaBio also participated in the Korea Foodtech Industry Exhibition held at COEX in November at the recommendation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to showcase its omega-balanced eggs, milk, and pork.

Leading the transformation of the agricultural industry by convincing conservative farmers with proven technology

Gaya Bio's top priority is trust. GayaBio, which has been striving to secure scientific evidence such as intellectual property rights for all technologies developed by the company, SCI-ranked papers, verification experiments by national certification organizations, and joint industry-academia research reports, currently holds 15 patents at home and abroad. CEO Kim Hee-gyeom explained that accumulating numerically proven research results through the process of verifying the performance of products and technologies, even if the process is difficult and cumbersome at the time, has become the basis for securing market trust.

Despite being a startup venture, Gayabio focuses on R&D, with more than half of its employees holding degrees in animal life. He explains that the mix of researchers, many of whom have 3-40 years of experience, and MZ generation researchers creates a synergistic effect that stimulates experience and creativity. Mr. Kim also provides vision and leads open discussions so that researchers can develop freely and creatively. He said that pioneering a path that others have not traveled was a difficult and painful journey, but he was able to overcome it with the reward of accomplishment, the solidarity of teamwork, and hope for the future, and thanked the members and others who supported and cooperated with GAYABIO.

Joint R&D with various research organizations also continues. The company is actively conducting joint R&D with universities such as Seoul National University, KAIST, Konkuk University, and Hankuk University, as well as various research companies and large companies in the agriculture and food industries. Kim explained that such industry-academia-industry collaboration is helping to compensate for Gaya Bio's shortcomings and achieve the common goal of sustainable growth.

The leading livestock ESG platform driving the transition to sustainable agriculture

Kim said that GayaBio's first products were more like children because they went through a lot of trial and error and painful improvements. The first feed product that GayaBio launched was completely hardened after delivery and had to be returned. After persistent quality improvement work, it was resubmitted and approved. It took more than 50 trials to reach the desired specification before the first egg was produced, he said, adding that time has reaffirmed that GayaBio is on the right track as it receives increasingly higher levels of government support.

The government has enacted the ‘2050 Carbon Reduction Scenario" and announced greenhouse gas reduction targets for each industry to respond to global warming. GAYBAIO has been the fastest among domestic companies to develop feed that reduces greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide. The low-methane feed, which has been developed, is currently undergoing verification and improvement of methane reduction performance to increase the reliability and perfection of the technology, and low-nitrous oxide feed that reduces nitrous oxide using microbiome technology for the first time in the industry is being developed in parallel. Kim said they are researching feeds that can reduce greenhouse gases while minimizing the impact on livestock growth. The company is determined to build a new model of sustainable livestock farming where farmers and consumers can coexist while solving the environmental pollution caused by the livestock industry.

As a leading platform for livestock ESG, GayaBio is leading the transition to a sustainable agriculture industry. Mr. Kim shared his ambition to create food that fills values, not just stomachs, through collaboration with like-minded companies, farmers, and research institutions. He emphasized the importance of collaboration and changing perceptions, saying that the sustainable agricultural industry is a four-way game that can only be achieved when companies, consumers, farmers, and the government work together. With GayaBio leading the sustainable growth of the agricultural industry and the spread of ESG in the agricultural industry, a paradigm shift in Korea's agricultural industry is taking place.

Source: Person of the Month (https://www.monthlypeople.com)