▲ Ops / CEO Kim Sang-yong

We all want to eat well. Recently, more and more Koreans prefer healthy and delicious bread to rice. They are busy looking for the breads they want from large franchise brands to village bakeries. Meanwhile, a bakery brand that has been manufacturing delicious bread with fresh ingredients and traditional techniques for decades is attracting people’s attention. We covered Ops, which is creating a virtuous cycle for a healthy society with good quality bread.

Taste the purity of nature through traditional techniques 

Providing the bread made with good ingredients

Ops (CEO Kim Sang-yong) is a bakery that pursues the happiness of everyone in the world and provides consumers with fresh and delicious bread that captures the pure taste of nature through traditional techniques. 

Baguettes, chocolates, cakes, white bread, rolls, pounds, manchu, etc. are all made by hand in the process. It is not frozen in the process and strives to provide a fresh product at all times. To this end, cacao beans and natural vanilla beans are imported from the best overseas production areas, and seasonal fruits grown on reliable domestic farms are used to manufacture products. An official said, “We do not use artificial additives such as emulsifiers or artificial colors, and we produce products using natural ingredients. We are also contributing to the local community through the delivery of ingredients grown all over the country, such as strawberries in Hapcheon and apples in Cheongsong..” 

Ops also strives to produce healthy crops by operating its own farms to use more and more fresh ingredients. The farm is Jardin Ops, a 991,735m2 farm located in Cheongsong and Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, and the official said, “We will continue to maximize the value and return it to customers who purchase our products by producing high-quality raw materials and reducing intermediate distribution costs.” The company is also working to grow its own almonds and hazelnuts, which are raw materials that are currently imported directly from the production site.

The company produces and sells a variety of products using these fresh ingredients and traditional methods with more than 1,000 proven recipes. Production is operated only in directly managed stores in HACCP-certified facilities, and each store is reliably supervised by the head office. Recently, for customers looking for Ops products from all over the country, the company has been running an online shopping mall. 

Aiming for a virtuous cycle through products and brands

Social contribution activities and donations 

Ops’ brands are connected in a virtuous circle. From ‘Jardin Ops’, which produces fresh seasonal ingredients used by Ops, to French restaurants ‘De marigny’ and ‘Le Convive’, which are leading the new food culture, all brands are growing together. The company is steadily creating jobs as it grows, and is forming a virtuous cycle of growth with the local community through partnerships with farms. Through this, the company was awarded the NH Nonghyup Bank Proud Agri-Food Enterprise Award in the Agriculture and Green Finance Category.

The company is also active in social contribution activities. The unsold products were donated to nearby social welfare organizations (nursery schools, welfare associations for the handicapped, food banks, social history and pastoral bureaus of the Catholic Diocese of Busan, etc.) at each branch store, and as of 2022, donations of about 400 million won were made. In recognition of the constant donations made by all stores, the company received a plaque of appreciation from the mayor of Haeundae District in October 2022. Since 2021, Ops has been manufacturing and delivering products for children’s happy days through the ChildFund Korea, and in 2022, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Children’s Day, the company sponsored 1,100 sets of Hakwonjeon & Jus De Pomme to 20 Busan Regional Children’s Centers and ‘Aeawon’, a child care facility. To help fight the Miryang Forest Fire that broke out in 2022, the company gave 100 boxes of “Jus De Pomme” (10 pieces) to firefighters, police officers, and volunteers, and in 2023, it presented cookie sets to 1,100 children at the Yeongnam Regional Children’s Center through the Goodneighbors. The official said, “This year, we will continue to support the dreams of many children through active social contribution activities with the ChildFund Korea and the Save the Children.”