A research article co-authored by HUFS undergraduate students, including Seo Yong-Won (Management, Entry Class of ’18), Lee Soo-Hyun (Management, Entry Class of ’19), Jung Deu-Rim (Statistics, Entry Class of ’17), and Jung Soo-Yeon (Economics, Entry Class of ’18), was published in the “Journal of Product Research” of Korea Research Foundation. Indexed in the Korea Citation Index, it is a prestigious national academic journal in the field of management studies.

This publication is meaningful as the outcome of lively academic research and exchange among HUFS undergraduates in different majors and also between students and professors. All of the student co-authors share the experience of having joined the Management Association of Strategic Thinking (MAST), Quant Marketing Seminar (QMS), and Empirical Analysis Association at the College of Business. Under the guidance of Professor Yoon Won-Ju of the College of Business, they conducted an empirical study on the correlations between healthiness and corporate performance in the Korean food markets.

This student group won the Grand Prize at the 16th Management Innovation Research Paper and Case Study Competition for Undergraduate and Graduate Students held by KMAC, the nation’s leading management consulting firm, in December 2020. This publication is even more meaningful in that they were able to publish it in the renowned academic journal by not remaining complacent with the prize and further improving their research.

Their research has proposed a quantitative scale of measuring the wholesomeness of food products and, based on the scale, it has measured the healthiness of some 35,000 processed food products, empirically proving the relationship between the healthiness of food and corporate performance. According to the research, the more wholesome a food product is, the greater profitability the food company enjoys.

Professor Yoon of the College of Business said of its significance, “Due to the recent wellness trends, the food industry is seeing the importance of wholesome food growing increasingly. Our healthiness scale and research outcomes will contribute to better product development decision-making for food companies.”