[News Space=Reporter seungwon lee] 

"I tried it with my dad's card, so it's okay if it fails."

"I envy conglomerates because they can try and if it doesn't work out, they can just fold. For small business owners, if they fail, it's over."

"Kim Dong-seon, could you have done anything without Dad's card?"

"If you fail, the group will cover for you, so isn't it a sense of privilege rather than an experimental spirit?"

"From the consumer's perspective, it was a boring experiment. What's the point of just having a cheap price? The taste and service were both average."

"Even if a robot makes udon, if it doesn't taste good, it's useless. In the end, it's just an experiment with money."

These are actual comments and community responses to the 'Fluid' store that closed after a month.

The robot udon restaurant 'Yudong', led by Vice President Kim Dong-sun, the third son of Hanwha Group, has closed its doors in Jongno, Seoul, just one month after opening. Yudong, the first offline store directly operated by Hanwha Foodtech and a foodtech experiment at the group level, ceased operations on June 27.

Officially, the reasons given were "interior changes and equipment performance improvements," but criticism poured in from the industry, consumers, and internal employees that it was a "chaebol-style experiment that does not admit failure."

“Robots make udon”… Despite the low price, people ignore it

Yudong reduced labor costs by introducing automated cooking robots and unmanned systems, and set groundbreaking prices such as 2,000 won for old-fashioned udon, 4,000 won for fried tofu udon, and 6,000 won for beef udon. Although it emphasized efficiency by operating 24 hours a day and having 1-2 full-time employees, according to actual store visits and on-site reporting, there were not many customers, and consumer response was lukewarm.

One community user commented, "Even if it's 2,000 won udon, it doesn't have much appeal other than the fact that it's made by a robot." Another SNS comment criticized, "Since they're a conglomerate, they try it and if it doesn't work, they close it right away. Small business owners start something and it's over if it fails."

Hanwha Food Tech, turning a deficit… The price of experimentation is ‘failure’

Hanwha Foodtech's sales in 2024 decreased by 5.5% year-on-year to KRW 114.9 billion, and it turned into a deficit with an operating loss of KRW 11 billion and a net loss of KRW 12.3 billion. In 2023, it had an operating profit of KRW 1.9 billion, but it turned into a deficit in just one year.

Even though they received a 10 billion won in funding from their parent company, the results of their restaurant and food tech experiments were nothing but successive store closures and deficits.

Consecutive failures… What if there was no ‘Dad Card’?

This is not the first dining-out experiment led by Vice President Kim Dong-sun. The robot pasta restaurant 'Pasta X', which opened in Hannam-dong in April of last year, closed after a year, and the American robot pizza brand 'Stella Pizza' also does not have an offline store.

In addition, there were a series of major business failures, including the return of duty-free shop business licenses and failure to invest in hotel and leisure real estate.

A financial industry insider said, "Buying a brand with money and resetting it when it fails is a privilege exclusive to the third generation of conglomerates," and added, "For small business owners, one failure means their life is over, but these people have a strong sense of discomfort about starting a business as an experiment."

“Failure is a reset”… The shadow of the conglomerate experiment

Hanwha Vice President Kim Dong-sun's food tech experiment was ultimately recorded as another 'failure'. Despite the low price and new technology such as robotic automation, it could not avoid the cold evaluation of consumers and the market.

The industry and public opinion are expressing a sense of discomfort and skepticism about the privileges of conglomerates, with the idea that "failure after an experiment results in a reset, and the group bears the full cost."

Hanwha Foodtech's continued deficit and Vice President Kim Dong-sun's history of business failures are further fueling criticism that this was an experiment that was only possible with the 'dad card.'