Samjin Eomuk (SamjinFoods)

Samjin Eomuk has made fish cake in Busan since 1953. Its main store still stands where production began, at 36 Taejong-ro 99beon-gil in Yeongdo-gu, in the Bongnae-dong district. The company, Samjin Food, is now in its third generation under representative Park Yong-jun. It frames its work as building a food culture on fish protein. In December 2013 it opened what it calls the country's first eomuk bakery. That format sells fish cake in bakery style from counters rather than only as an ingredient for soups and tteokbokki, and the company credits it with changing the shape of the industry. The Yeongdo main store pairs that counter with an experience hall and history museum. Visitors book sessions there to make eomuk themselves. Product ranges run from square sheets and sticks to rolled pieces, with gift sets such as the 1953 set named for the founding year. Samjin has since opened branches in Lotte department stores in Seoul and Busan and at Yongsan and Busan stations. Abroad it began with a Singapore opening in 2017 and has reached Jakarta and Hanoi and Lidcombe in Australia.