Gompyo Beer developers face bankruptcy

[Anchor]

Those who enjoy beer are likely familiar with this 'Gompyo Beer'.

It caused a stock shortage and sold over 50 million cans in just the first three years of its launch.

However, the small business that developed and sold this beer is now facing bankruptcy.

What happened? Reporter Song Myung-hee has the story.

[Report]

The 'Goympyo Beer' was developed by the small company 7Bräu.

It took half a year to develop, after signing a trademark contract at the suggestion of Daehan Flour Mill.

[Kim Jae-kyung/Executive Director of 7Bräu: "It's a wheat beer, and the yeast used is called 'Sejong.' This was the first time a craft beer had such success."]

A year later, Daehan Flour Mill, which was only receiving trademark royalties, proposed to change the contract terms.

The amended contract included a clause requiring 7Bräu to supply beer to Daehan Flour Mill for export.

[Kang Ji-hyun/Patent Attorney: "The first contract was indeed a licensing agreement. The second contract involved entrusting manufacturing to 7Bräu and asking them to supply, which appears to be a typical subcontracting agreement."]

Even after handing over the export business, 7Bräu had to support Daehan Flour Mill's export operations and could not refuse requests for client lists and the secret beer recipe.

[Kim Gang-sam/CEO of 7Bräu: "We were thinking about how we could organically produce with Daehan Flour Mill for a long time."]

However, when it was time to renew the contract, Daehan Flour Mill suggested a competitive bidding process and selected another alcohol company as the new trademark user.

Concerns about potential violations of subcontracting laws have been raised.

[Kang Ji-hyun/Patent Attorney: "(The recipe) included mixing ratios and such, so this can be considered information that falls under trade secrets, and a non-disclosure agreement should be signed regarding how it will be used."]

Daehan Flour Mill stated that they were pursuing new changes and that their decision was made after tasting samples during the bidding process.

The 'Gompyo Beer Season 2,' which attempted to make changes, had ingredients and packaging designs that were almost identical to the original Gompyo Beer.

This is KBS News, Song Myung-hee.