Jeon Hwa-seong's Startup Morning Coffee: Smart City

## Startup Morning Coffee Spotlights Urban Labs' Sustainable Food Tech Innovation "Startup Morning Coffee," broadcast live every day at 8:40 AM on the YouTube channel 'Jeon Hwa-sung's CNTV,' is an important platform that discovers and introduces hidden gems within Korea's startup ecosystem. This program, which deeply covers the core competencies and market potential of various startups, has established itself as a valuable source of information for those interested in startups, thanks to interactive communication with viewers through real-time comments. Recently, the company that gained attention on this program is Urban Labs, a food tech company that infuses innovative value into discarded food by-products. Urban Labs is a company specializing in upcycled alternative foods, converting enormous quantities of discarded food by-products, such as coffee grounds and red ginseng marc, into high-value edible raw materials. It aims for a sustainable future by addressing the four key challenges facing the modern food industry: unstable raw material supply due to climate change, surging demand for alternative proteins, and the issue of food by-product disposal. It is currently receiving support from CNT Tech's Youth Cook Business Center, recognizing its potential. Urban Labs' strongest competitive edge lies in its proprietary, scientifically proven raw material extraction technology, which has been published in SCI-level journals. Based on this technology, it precisely extracts only protein, dietary fiber, and antioxidant components from large quantities of coffee grounds collected from coffee beverage factories, producing 'Cup Flour,' a high-quality plant-based protein ingredient. This innovative Cup Flour, designed with an in-house formula to maximize protein content and reduce calories and fat, is utilized in the development of various finished food products such as bread, protein beer, and cookies, presenting a new alternative to the existing soybean-centric alternative protein market. Beyond coffee grounds, Urban Labs is also extracting active ingredients from red ginseng marc, a by-product of red ginseng manufacturing, and transforming them into new raw materials. Even more remarkably, as mentioned in CEO Jeon Hwa-sung's one-point comment, Urban Labs has independently developed a 'Binless Coffee' ingredient that recreates the deep taste and aroma of decaffeinated coffee without actual coffee beans. This alternative coffee ingredient, born from molecular structure analysis, is currently supplied to the market in cold brew form and is receiving high sensory evaluations, suggesting explosive growth potential in the alternative beverage market. Thus, Urban Labs is actively realizing ESG values by successfully building a sustainable virtuous cycle structure that connects raw material supply-extraction-food distribution using discarded by-products. Through various POCs (Proof of Concept), such as the application of alternative cacao to Modeless, it is continuously expanding its business areas and plans to emerge as a leader in creating environmental and social value beyond food tech. Urban Labs' innovative endeavors will be an important milestone illuminating the future of the sustainable food industry.