About Yoonchan Hwang

Future food and novel ingredients, from the lab bench to the Korean market

I'm a Korea-based food-tech professional working on regulatory and market-access strategy. I'm Senior Business Development Manager in the Food & Nutrition Group at Intertek Assuris, the scientific and regulatory consulting arm of Intertek, and the founder of Everything But, a cell-based pet-food company. Before that I led business development and strategy at SeaWith, a Korean cultivated-meat company, after seven years in US biomedical research. I live in Gwangmyeong, just south of Seoul.

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Affiliation. Senior Business Development Manager, Food & Nutrition Group, Intertek Assuris, the scientific and regulatory consulting arm of Intertek. For formal enquiries, use the Intertek Assuris site.

Logo and affiliation shown for Intertek Assuris review; the approved brand file and placement will replace this before publication.

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"The perfect person to create the food tech guide to South Korea," wrote Alex Shandrovsky, Managing Director of FoodTech Weekly, announcing this guide in October 2026. Read the post

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My perspective

My research and startup experience shape the questions I ask about new technologies, commercial partnerships and market entry. I combine that perspective with my professional connections and published sources to help visitors prepare for useful conversations in Korea.

Experience

Period	Role	Perspective for the guide
Feb 2026 to present	Senior Business Development Manager, Intertek Assuris, Food & Nutrition Group. Strategic partnerships with food and biotech companies across Asia; novel foods and alternative proteins; regulatory and market-access strategy with scientific and regulatory experts; client engagements from first discussion to project delivery.	Identifying regulatory and market-access questions early in product development
Aug 2023 to present	Founder and CEO, Everything But, a cell-based pet-food company. Speaker at the Industrializing Cultivated Meat and Seafood Summit (Boston, 2023), Bridge2Food Startup Pitch (Singapore, 2023), Clear Meat SMS (2024) and Regulating the Future of Foods (Future of Protein Production, 2024).	Experience building a cell-based pet-food startup in Korea
Aug 2021 to Jul 2023	Senior Manager, Business Development and Strategy, SeaWith, a Korean cultivated-meat company. Panel speaker at the Cultured Meat Symposium (2022) and the Cell Agri Webinar Series (2023).	Preparing partnership and business-development discussions for a cultivated-meat startup
2013 to 2020	Research roles at the University at Buffalo and the Hunter James Kelly Research Institute, Buffalo, New York: neuroscience (oligodendrocyte development and myelination), yeast molecular biology and recombinant protein work.	Assessing experimental evidence and communicating technical information
2009 to 2010	Owner, Cafe Arche, Daejeon. Trained staff, ran events for local business groups, taught coffee classes and advised new shops.	How to read a market through what it sells, which is what the field-trip pages do

Speaking and teaching

GMEP 2026 Masterclass (Innovate360, June 2026). Opened the series for the cohort of Korean food-tech, agri-tech, AI and robotics startups going global, on regulatory strategy, evidence planning and supply-chain risk, with cases from biotech bankruptcies and the Juul recall. Hosted by the Goyang Investment Authority.
Seoul Food Tech Startup Center seminar (12 October 2026). FDA GRAS and US market entry, Singapore and Southeast Asia, and global food-tech investment, with a visiting Intertek Assuris senior director and a Singapore food-tech VC partner.
Intertek Assuris webinars. EU and UK Novel Food authorisation (14 October 2026); FDA's proposed mandatory GRAS notification (September 2026); US pet-food and supplement regulation (November 2026).
Earlier: panels and pitches on cultivated meat and seafood in Boston, Singapore and Seoul (2022 to 2024).

Recent LinkedIn posts

Posted 8 October 2026. Who wants in on FDA GRAS? A small, informal seminar for food-tech companies at the Seoul Food Tech Startup Center on 12 October, 6 pm, with pizza. Topics: GRAS and the US, Singapore and Southeast Asia, global investment and networking.
Posted 8 October 2026. Launching a new ingredient in Europe starts long before the dossier: what data EFSA expects, how the risk assessment runs, and the issues that come up in review. A webinar on 14 October. Details
Posted 23 June 2026. Honoured to represent Intertek Assuris at the GMEP 2026 Masterclass series. One takeaway: great technology alone is not enough. Market selection, regulatory pathways and data requirements should be considered from day one of product development.
Posted July 2026. Shared an Intertek Assuris Ask the Expert session on bringing food ingredients to China: regulation first, from the earliest stage of product development.

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What I can help with

Orientation. Identifying Korean institutions, programmes and companies relevant to your technology and stage, and preparing for meetings. That is what this site is for.