An organic farmer, his son and a friend.

Pulmuone began as a shop. The company says that on 12 May 1981 a small grocery called the “Pulmuone Organic Produce Farm Shop” opened in Apgujeong-dong, in Seoul’s Gangnam district, selling organic produce from Won Kyung-sun’s Pulmuone Farm and from farmers linked to the Jeongnonghoi, an organic farming society. It calls the shop Korea’s first organic food store and the birthplace of the company. Korean Wikipedia describes Won Kyung-sun as the founder of the Pulmuone Farm and the man known for starting organic farming in Korea.

The shop itself was the work of the next generation. Korean Wikipedia says Won Kyung-sun’s son Won Hye-young founded the food business in 1981 and ran it until 1986, and that early in 1987 he handed it to his friend Nam Seung-woo and went into politics; he later served five terms in the National Assembly. Korean Wikipedia names Won Hye-young and Nam Seung-woo as the company’s founders.

The company dates its formal history in steps. Its own timeline says Pulmuone Enzyme Food was set up in October 1982 and incorporated as Pulmuone Foods in May 1984, and Pulmuone marked its 30th anniversary in May 2014, counting from that incorporation. English Wikipedia gives 1981 as the founding year, from the shop. Korean Wikipedia says the company took the shorter name Pulmuone in 1995, and its shares trade on the Korea Exchange.

Tofu in a pack, then tofu in plastic.

Pulmuone’s reputation rests on everyday staples, above all tofu and bean sprouts, which Korean Wikipedia names as its main products. The company says it launched Korea’s first packaged tofu in January 1984 and the first tofu packed in plastic in January 1987,. Its timeline then follows the factories: a plant at Uiryeong in South Gyeongsang province in 1994, a bean-sprout plant at Eumseong in North Chungcheong province in 1996 and a third tofu plant at Eumseong in 2003. Korean Wikipedia says the company bought an existing Eumseong plant from Teolbone Foods in 1994 and that Eumseong is its registered seat.

The range spread from there. The company and Korean Wikipedia list fresh noodles from 1995, bottled water from 1986, a business making instant ramyun taken over from Binggrae in 2003, and a non-fried, air-dried ramyun called “Nature Is Delicious” in January 2011. English Wikipedia lists sub-brands including Chan-ma-ru and Soga alongside dumplings, eggs, kimchi, sauces and frozen foods. In 2021 Pulmuone declared itself a plant-based food company, the newspaper Chunji Ilbo reported in March that year, with tofu noodles and tofu-based meat substitutes among the products that followed.

Packaging has been part of the brand story. The company says it switched the packaging of all its tofu products to more environmentally friendly materials in October 2013, and Asia Economy reported in May 2021 that a Pulmuone salad container won an award at the 15th Korea Packaging Contest. The company’s Korean slogans include “For me, for the Earth” and “wholesome food,” and in 2010 it began a Wholesome Foods campaign. Pulmuone also runs Museum Kimchikan, a kimchi museum that opened in 1986 as the Kimchi Field Museum and is now in Insa-dong, Seoul, English Wikipedia says. Korean Wikipedia dates the current corporate identity to 2018, the first change in 13 years.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all food and drink names from South Korea: Jinro, Paris Baguette, Chilsung Cider, Pulmuone, Dongwon, Sempio and Chung Jung One. Korean food and drink brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from family firms that still carry a founder’s name to names that now belong to much larger food and drink groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a corner shop to a supermarket shelf.

A food or drink brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single product than by a pack, a name and the meal, snack or drink it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the place where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its products are actually made and packed.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its products are made and how its packaging has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Partners abroad, tofu in America and a professional CEO.

Pulmuone went abroad early. The company says it set up Pulmuone USA in January 1991, followed by companies in China in 2010. It formed joint ventures with large foreign food groups: with Nestlé Waters in 2004 for bottled water, with France’s Danone in 2012 as Danone Pulmuone, for yogurts, and with Japan’s Kibun in 2013. In Japan it bought Asahi Food Processing in June 2014, the company says.

Its biggest step overseas came in tofu. In March 2016 Pulmuone’s American arm bought the tofu business of Vitasoy USA, which included Nasoya, a tofu maker founded in Leominster, Massachusetts, in 1977, the trade site Dairy Reporter reported at the time. The company describes it as America’s number-one tofu brand, and English Wikipedia says Pulmuone Foods USA has offices in Fullerton and Gilroy, California, and in New York state.

At home the company has moved from its founders to hired managers. The company says it adopted professional management in January 2018, when Lee Hyo-yul, who had joined Pulmuone in 1983 and run Pulmuone Foods from 2010, became its general chief executive; Korean Wikipedia adds that he had been co-chief executive from 2017. Korean Wikipedia lists the founder Nam Seung-woo and related parties as the largest shareholders, with around 55%, and gives the head office as Suseo-dong in Seoul’s Gangnam district. The company’s timeline names Korean plants at Eumseong and Uiryeong.

For a design guide, Pulmuone shows how an organic farm shop’s plain values can be carried onto a chilled supermarket shelf, one block of tofu at a time. Compare Binggrae, which handed Pulmuone its ramyun business, and Vitasoy, the Hong Kong soy-milk maker whose American tofu Pulmuone bought. For this guide we use a farm green, a leaf green and a tofu white with a calm serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Pulmuone’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.