Armored Fresh is the U.S. subsidiary of Yangyoo, the Korea-based food tech company behind Korea’s first vegan cheese and other food alternatives aimed at helping the environment. This January, Armored Fresh was the first Korean company to showcase at the convention’s first “Food Technology” section at CES and is preparing to enter global markets.
I visited the Armored Fresh booth at CES and tried a couple of their products: the vegan cube cheese and the vegan cheese cream dduk. The plain cube cheese had a very mild cheese flavor and a crumbly texture that I wasn’t expecting. I didn’t really like it because I expected it to be either soft and spreadable or hard and firm when I bit down, and it was neither.
Although I wasn’t a big fan of the vegan cube cheese, I thoroughly enjoyed the vegan cheese cream dduk. Dduk is a type of Korean rice cake made with steamed rice flour that resembles mochi, and Armored Fresh’s contains cream made from coconut oil. While there are some vegan mochi ice cream products on the market in the United States, few product lines are entirely dedicated to vegan mochi and none are as traditional as Armored Fresh.
The dduk was perfectly soft and had a light chew, and the texture of the cream inside tasted similar to ice cream since the dduk is meant to be stored frozen and eaten slightly thawed. I tried three flavors: corn, rice milk, and injeolmi. The corn flavor was very subtle and fresh, which I liked because I’m not fond of the artificial taste of some corn-flavored products. The rice milk was my favorite because it had a smooth sweetness and reminded me of the mochi I grew up eating. The injeolmi had a unique flavor that was nutty and fragrant. For those that haven’t tried injeolmi before, it is a Korean sweet rice cake made with glutinous rice flour and covered with powdered dried beans and often roasted soybean. The Armored Fresh injeolmi flavor reminded me of roasted soybean or sesame. The cream inside each flavor that I tried had a smooth consistency and texture that didn’t make it obvious that it wasn’t made from real milk.
Armored Fresh will enter the U.S. market with several different cheese products, including vegan cream cheese in 8 different flavors, vegan cube cheese (also available in 8 different flavors), sliced cheese, and shredded cheese. Armored Fresh also plans to use this vegan cheese on its other brands, Young Man dduk, and Spaceman Pizza. Spaceman Pizza will feature flavors such as margherita, meatball, and kimchi with vegan meatballs made from soy-based meat. The company is also developing almond milk-based yogurt and ice cream.
Armored Fresh will be attending various food-centric shows in the coming months in Anaheim, Orlando, New York, and Chicago and plans to work with both national and local distributors to make their products available nationwide.
As alternative dairy gains traction in global markets, it will be interesting to see how ethnic products embrace innovation without compromising their foods’ traditions and cultural significance. Armored Fresh’s dduk balances both forces well, creating a product that honors tradition while adapting to changing times to be more sustainable. Above all, it’s delicious.
