Quite a saga indeed, the story of this Korean company founded in 1983 by its current owner and Director James Ki. In the beginning a "mere" distributor of packaging accessories and dispensers also offering an anodising activity, the firm then decides in the mid-90s to start producing airless systems. In 1998 Yonwoo "only" achieved a turnover of $ 4.2 million in (compared to 125 million (!) forcasted in 2011, just thirteen years later!).
The turn of the century will be beneficial to the company: A large American group operating in the beauty industry is in an urgent need of an airless container that one of his suppliers is unable to deliver in good conditions. The Korean company will be there at the right time to provides the much needed solution. "From there on, explains Daniel Cha, Export Sales Manager, our progression will never stop!"
During the same period, it is the encounter with the first partners of what will become in 2003 the Quadpack Group. There too, the ties of both business partners will lead them far beyond their expectations on their conquest of the European market of beauty packaging. "Ties so strong, says Gérard Perrin, that Yonwoo now accounts for a significant share of Quadpack’s turnover and that, conversely, the commercial dynamics of Quadpack offers Yonwoo with a constant development.” A word sums up pretty well the collaboration between the two companies, "trust". And it is precisely in this spirit and to respond to the will of many of their global customers, to only rely on one industrial partner in the world, that both partners mutually agreed to set up a new division, Quadpack-Yonwoo which will be in charge of global key account customers under the responsibility of Gérard Perrin.
Innovation...., Innovation!
"It has really become our second nature", insists Daniel Cha. "Innovation is an integral part of Yonwoo’s industrial culture. A field in which we are quite complementary with our friends from Quadpack." So it’s no accident if the Korean company is now one of the top suppliers of several major global groups in the cosmetic world.
Among Yonwoo’s flagship products, of course, we find the airless systems developed in recent years and for which the Korean company has wished to position itself voluntarily among the high end suppliers! "Anyway the Korean market is always pushing upwards", emphasised Daniel Cha. Local groups like Amore Pacific and LG, which are large customers of Yonwoo, of course, contribute every day to this. Under such conditions, it is not surprising if, the growth of the firm, about 30% to 40% each year, has forced the company to move from one industrial building in 1998 to six today with a strike force of more than 230 injection machines. Out of the approximately 900 employees who work there, forty of them are only involved in R&D and nine designers also work full time.
"But we are also thinking of a way of accompanying our customers industrially in some parts of the world," confided Daniel Cha. To be continued...
