“Hana~ Let’s eat porridge!”
Maru came into the room carrying a tray. On the tray was a bowl of porridge. Today, I lost a tooth, and of all places, it was a molar, so I couldn’t eat rice.
Someone suggested chewing on the opposite side where the molar was missing, but it wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Even when I consciously tried to chew on the other side, I always ended up chewing where I usually did. It hadn’t even been a day since I lost the molar, so the pain was still fresh. I had just tried eating once and realized how tough it was. So, for the time being, I decided to rely on porridge. Porridge was easy to eat, and it didn’t require much chewing.
Maru placed the porridge bowl on the table. It was abalone porridge. Come to think of it, I thought abalone porridge usually didn’t have abalone and was just made with rice…
But the abalone porridge I was looking at now was different. Large pieces of abalone were swimming inside. I had heard that abalone porridge usually didn’t have abalone, making it similar to regular rice porridge. That’s why hospital doctors often recommend it.
But this time, it was different.
“There’s so much abalone in it!”
“Yeah. I got it from the chef on the first floor, Hana.”
It wasn’t bought from a porridge shop; it was made by the chef who works at our company’s first-floor restaurant. I heard he used to work at a five-star hotel, and true to his reputation, just the smell of the porridge made my mouth water. It seemed like it would be incredibly savory and delicious. I picked up the spoon and scooped some porridge. Steam was rising from it.
I wasn’t foolish enough to put the spoon directly into my mouth. Seeing how hot it was, I thought I might get burned if I did. So, I blew on it to cool it down. Maru went out for a moment to get some water.
After confirming that the porridge had cooled down a bit, I put the spoon in my mouth. Without even chewing much, the porridge slid down my throat. The taste was fantastic. It was truly porridge made by an excellent chef. And it seemed even more delicious because the ingredients were generously used.
“It’s delicious…”
I started eating the porridge in earnest. My teeth recover quickly, so by the day after tomorrow, I should be able to eat normal rice again. The teeth I had lost before had grown back strong long ago. Strangely, my body has an incredibly fast recovery rate.
While drinking the water Maru brought, I was able to have a hearty meal. A happy smile naturally appeared on my face. The meal was delicious, and eating porridge like this once in a while wasn’t bad at all. Of course, if the porridge had been tasteless, it would have been a different story.
—
In the East, there’s rice, and in the West, there’s wheat.
Wheat might be eaten as much as, or even more than, rice. The younger you are, the more likely you are to eat more wheat than rice.
Wheat is used in so many foods—snacks, bread, pizza, noodles—it’s hard to find something that doesn’t contain it. In Korea, where tastes are becoming more Westernized, wheat is important.
Unfortunately, South Korea’s wheat self-sufficiency rate is less than 1%, making it one of the weakest in wheat farming. While the climate is suitable for growing wheat, the yield is low compared to rice. Additionally, the price difference between domestic and imported wheat flour is significant.
Domestic wheat flour is almost 2-3 times more expensive than imported wheat flour. Businesses sensitive to even a single won have no reason to use domestic wheat flour that’s nearly three times more expensive. As a result, Korea’s wheat farms have been struggling for a long time. Growing wheat domestically is expensive, which is why domestic wheat flour is several times more expensive than imported wheat flour.
However, even selling at a high price doesn’t leave much profit.
“Hmm…”
Kim Sehee looked out at the vast plain. It was the best plain among the lands purchased by Starlight Food. Considering various conditions, there aren’t many places in Korea with such a plain. And the Smart Farm Building was already being constructed. Given the limited space for plant growth, it was crucial to use the space as efficiently as possible.
Given the massive consumption of wheat, if they didn’t build the Smart Farm Building in advance, the supply might not meet the demand. Of course, with harvests every 2-3 weeks, the yield per unit area was over 20 times higher than traditional farming. Unlike other farms that harvest only once a year, Starlight Food harvests about twice a month.
However, unfortunately, the global wheat yield is still insufficient to feed the world’s population. In countries where wheat is grown…
In Korea, all the land is used for growing wheat. Who knows, maybe Starlight Food could fill up smart farm buildings and make it happen.
But building something like that would take who knows how much time and money. Of course, it was something that had to be done eventually.
“I just made bread with Starlight Food’s flour, and it’s so savory and delicious. Just as expected.”
I already tried making bread with Starlight flour. The result was fantastic. Maybe because it’s a plant, the addictive taste didn’t disappear. And there was no difference from other flours. So, naturally, I had no choice but to buy the tastier Starlight flour.
When I roughly calculated the production costs, it was possible to sell it at a much cheaper price than imported flour. Of course, Kim Sehee had no intention of doing good for others. She planned to sell it at a slightly lower price than imported flour. The remaining profit was meant to be eaten up by Starlight Food.
As long as it was cheaper than imported flour, that was enough. The rest of the profits had to be returned to Hana when she grew up. Kim Sehee’s goal was to make Hana the most successful wealthy 20-something in Korea by the time she turned 20. It was possible because Hana held shares in Starlight Food.
Kim Sehee hoped that Hana would live a life free from financial worries.
—
If America has Wall Street, Korea has Yeouido.
Salaried workers at securities firms in Yeouido could get their hands on secretly spreading information. It was probably the fastest place in Korea to get information. If it was profitable information, they could get it faster than anyone else in South Korea. Information that spread here wouldn’t make the news until the next day.
You could say it’s just a one-day difference, but in the stock market, a one-day difference is huge. With this speed of information, it was like playing cards while seeing your opponent’s hand.
[Starlight Food in talks with flour milling-related companies!]
[Starlight Flour challenges imported flour!]
[The exact price of Starlight Flour hasn’t been revealed, but it’s expected to launch within this year!]
“What? Who’s spreading this nonsense?”
“Starlight Food succeeded in cultivating wheat after rice… and they can drastically reduce production costs… They plan to bring big changes to the Korean flour market?”
“Starlight Food is the most famous food company this year, right?”
“If even this kind of rumor is spreading, there must be something going on. What’s happening?”
Anyone working in the stock market couldn’t possibly not know about Starlight Food. It was the hottest company in the Korean stock market right now. A golden goose whose stock price never dropped. The stock price skyrocketed day by day, and it wasn’t going to drop anytime soon.
Those who bought Starlight Food’s stock when it was just selling snacks claimed to have made at least 200 times their investment. Like a famous foreign graphics company, it was rare to see someone make over 200 times profit in the stock market. This kind of rise was truly hard to come by, especially in modern society.
The news of Starlight Food quietly spreading in Yeouido.
Salaried workers at securities firms in Yeouido were running around like their feet were on fire, gathering information. When something this important happened, it was better to run around and get the info yourself. Sitting around wouldn’t help at all.
After running around and putting in the effort to gather information, they managed to get a rough outline.
Starlight Food wasn’t some national intelligence agency, but for a securities worker, it was an open enough company to get information.
