Introducing Korean Convenience
“You shouldn’t feel overwhelmed or intimidated to shop at your nearest Asian grocery store, wherever you live.”
Erica Dozier, founder of Korean Convenience
Korean Convenience helps people with food allergies, and dietary restrictions find ready-made Korean food easier.
Korean Convenience founder, Erica Dozier, remembers the confusion after taking a bite of a shrimp burrito and having her first allergic reaction in her trip to South Korea. She quickly understood that a language barrier wasn’t her only obstacle living abroad.
She learned that buying the same few products at the grocery store was a safe, easy way to go. But, there are only so many times that you can dine out at the international fast-food chains you recognize or eat the same limited products before you realize that the whole point of traveling is to live like a local.
Upon that realization, a whole new set of challenges arose. How do you develop a love for a new cuisine and manage a food allergy at the same time? Particularly for Erica, how do you avoid seafood in a seafood-heavy national cuisine. (Shellfish is present in many ready-made sauces, snacks, and soups.)
Erica wasn’t fluent enough in the Korean language to understand the words written on the nutrition labels of products at the grocery store.
She wondered if she was the only person who felt frustration and the sense of being overwhelmed every time she went grocery shopping. Then, researching food allergies in South Korea, she realized there were bits and pieces on various websites for a person managing food allergies. But, determining what information was relevant and what was outdated was challenging.
Combining her love for travel, cuisine, and sheer determination, she decided that others in the allergy and dietary community shouldn’t have to undergo the same experience she did. So, after completing a business-class program offered through the Seoul Business Center, Erica founded Korean Convenience. Her mission is to aid shoppers in finding allergen and ingredient information all in one convenient application.
Korean Convenience key features:
Creating an account allows you to select your allergens to avoid (eggs, fish, milk, gluten, meat, peanut, sesame, shellfish, soybean, tree nuts, or wheat). Products will be populated based on the allergens you’ve selected. Individuals with multiple allergies can choose more than one allergen as well as meat & milk to view results based on vegan requirements.
Browse available products by category including bread, canned, chips, cookies, crackers, drinks, ramen, snack or soup filters. You can see all the products available or scroll to the right and see the latest nine products added.
Other features include adding products in the app, favoriting products for easy searching, or using the cooking directory to find quick translations of the most popular food ingredients. You can also explore all the ingredients in a product, if your allergens lie outside of the Top 9.
We’re always adding new products based on food trends or seasonal changes. At Korean Convenience, we believe shopping shouldn’t be frustrating and time-consuming; it should be as easy as possible.
To get started, download the Korean Convenience app on Google Play and the App Store, or visit www.koreanconvenience.com.
Follow @KoreanConven on Facebook or @KoreanConven on Twitter.