Korean gastronomy offers (with credit)

Kristina T.

Kristina, now 32 years old, studied Chinese in China and worked in a Samsung smartwatch factory in South Korea to save money to start her own business before returning to Kyrgyzstan. At the end of 2023, she and a business partner bought an Asian-style café. The premises are located on the 3rd floor of a large supermarket in the city center. Having never been in the business world herself, Kristina learns a lot from her business partner Oleg (the husband of Kristina's cousin). He has helped his parents in the café since he was a child and is now Kristina's advisor and assistant for the basic processes. The café eventually became a restaurant serving Korean cuisine.

Project ID

740

Country / City

Kyrgyzstan / Bishkek

Jobs at the start

12

additional potential jobs

15

entrepreneur sponsorship

Training and coaching CHF 250 per month over 2 years

Loan amount

USD 17'500

Loan purpose

for the purchase of further professional equipment for the restaurant and sauce production

Project description

After just two months, the restaurant has already made a name for itself in the city and Kristina has already broken even. At lunchtime and at weekends, guests are queuing up. Kristina's specialty is the Korean national soup Tom Yam with a special sauce. Kristina has learned to make the sauce herself using a special recipe made from local ingredients. Her recipe turned out to be so good, tasty and cheaper than the sauce imported from Korea that other cafés and restaurants not only in Kyrgyzstan but also in Kazakhstan asked her to sell them the sauce. Therefore, Kristina has started to make more sauce and with the help of BPN she plans to buy special equipment for sauce making and open a second café with Korean cuisine.

Christina has come to BPN to learn business management skills and is particularly looking forward to the seminar on business management and human resource management as her business has grown significantly in the last 9 months and now employs 12 people. She has applied for a loan of 17,500 dollars from us, which she needs to buy more professional equipment for the restaurant and sauce production.

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Caroline Flück

Philanthropy Manager
+41 31 305 25 26
caroline.flueck@bpn.ch