The fourth partner we’d like to introduce is Hintchain. We’ve been running our interview series for quite some time now, so we assume you are all aware of Klaytn’s initial service partners. However, if you feel like you still need some information, check out our very first post on initial service partners here.

Hintchain is a blockchain-based food data project for personalized food solution operated by Vital Hint. By analyzing individual tastes and eating habits, Hintchain provides personalized recipe recommendations with an aim to reconstruct the food industry to be more customer-centric. The project boasts its applicability as an underlying infrastructure technology for all food-related sectors including restaurants, convenience stores, supermarkets, food platforms, etc.

Hintchain HQ in Seocho-dong

We visited Hintchain headquarter located in Seocho-dong and sat down with Paul JiWoong Chung, the CEO of Hintchain.

Klaytn: Please tell us more about yourself for our readers.

Chung: I have previously worked as network engineer at Samsung Electronics and as data platform engineer at NCSoft. I also founded a fashion data platform called Club Venit, where I worked as CEO for four years before moving to Reebonz Korea as CTO. I founded Vital Hint four years ago to explore food big data technology, and I’ve been working with Hintchain project since earlier this year.

Klaytn: How did the collaboration with Klaytn first come about?

Chung: Our project is a business protocol that boasts its applicability to a variety of dApps including our very own, Haemuknamnyeo. Working with a variety of dApps means that we cover a wide range of technology. A platform that provides great technical support therefore is very much useful for us. We were looking for an advanced platform that can provide such support, and Klaytn was a good match. We were impressed with how service-oriented Klaytn was. Klaytn really takes end users and service providers seriously. It’s very difficult to come across platforms like Klaytn that bravely acts on its creative ideas and thoughts.

Paul JiWoong Chung, the CEO of Hintchain

Klaytn: Can you tell us more about your protocol?

Chung: We’ve been in the food business for quite some time with Haemuknamnyeo. Just to give you a brief overview, Haemuknamnyeo provides food recommendation service based on individual tastes. We actually started off with another platform prior to Haemuknamnyeo called Hint back in 2014. Hint was a healthy food recommendation platform targeted for those interested in improving their health condition or chronic disease, such as diabetes. As we were working with Hint, we realized that the more user data is collected, the more meaningful recommendation we can provide. So we released Haemuknamnyeo. You can imagine Haemuknamnyeo as a more popularized version of Hint for a broader general audience. And then we ventured out to China in 2016. There are different versions of Haemuknamnyeo — there is a Chinese edition of Haemuknamnyeo as well as a Southeast Asian version called Foodiest.