Transforming Abandoned Onion Skins: A Young Entrepreneur's Journey

[Anchor]

A young entrepreneur is teaming up with local farmers to create new value from agricultural products. Discarded onion skins are being reborn as a new resource.

Reporter Kim Min-ji from JTV has the story.

[Reporter]

Onions harvested in early summer are stacked neatly.

Cho Ga-ram, who was born and raised in Iksan and founded a cosmetics company in Seoul, focused her attention on discarded onion skins.

This is because onion skins are rich in "quercetin," a component renowned for its excellent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

However, the process of securing a stable supply of onion skins as raw material was not easy.

After traveling all over the country to find onion processing companies, she finally met partner farmers who shared her vision in her hometown of Iksan.

[Cho Ga-ram / Young Entrepreneur: I contacted about 19 companies that process onions. When we first met, the owner also thought it was such a waste to throw away these onion skins, and gave me positive feedback, saying it was a great idea.]

Farmers are also welcoming the change as previously discarded waste turns into a new source of income.

[So Byeong-don / Onion Farmer: It felt like such a waste to throw them away, but hearing that they are going to make products out of them... Now the skins also create added value, and we can supply the bulbs to the company as well. What could be better than that?]

Cho is developing cosmetics and facial cleansers utilizing onion skin extracts, and plans to launch them on the market around October.

[Cho Ga-ram / Young Entrepreneur: We have made mini-sized samples of the products we will actually launch. Our goal is to launch them by October, and next year, we aim to expand overseas.]

A young entrepreneur's idea to discover the value of discarded onion skins is providing local farms with a new source of income and paving the way for her to enter the global market.

(Video by Kang Gyeong-jin / JTV)

Kim Min-ji, JTV
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.