April 19, 2024

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TOKYO-- Starting with deep-fried fish, around 10 different fried dishes were served at a local restaurant Epicure near Japanese kitchen appliance startup Evertron’s headquarters in Tokyo.

All the dishes were cooked with Evertron’s Dr. Fry and they tasted crispy like regular deep-fried food and also juicy on the inside. 

Evertron’s Dr. Fry

Dr. Fry is a kitchen appliance that can fry, bake and heat up food. According to the company, the fryer is special because it reduces the oil that gets observed into foods up to 50 percent through the startup’s self-developed water molecular technology.

“Currently, influential chefs in more than 5,000 restaurants in Japan are using our fryers. I think it is time for us to bring our technology overseas,” Evertron founder and CEO Hisao Tanaka said during his interview session, provided by the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat for Journalists.

The company has already established a unit in South Korea and started selling its product to business owners from August 2018. “In Korea, we are currently supplying our fryer through business-to-business channels. We also plan to expand to a business-to-consumer model soon,” Tanaka told The Investor.

He added that the company decided to focus on supplying the product to chefs in popular restaurants first because it is difficult to measure the freshness and taste of the food on the objective scale. “There are no exact guidelines, so we wanted famous chefs to experience our product and get reviews from them first,” he said.

Tanaka also noted that he is well-aware of the popularity of air fryers in Korea. “We think we have competitiveness against air fryer makers in Korea because our product can make more delicious food. I think the taste is very crucial,” he said. Head of Evertron Korea Lee Jun-suk also added that air fryer uses oil and water within the food, which can harm its taste. “Our fryer is different because we focus more on observing water within the food,” Lee said.

 

Deep-fried fish cooked with Evertron's Dr. Fry

“The key to our tech is water, which accounts for more than 60 percent of the food. Water is the one that influences the food’s taste, color and nutrition,” the CEO added. “Our tech makes it possible for free water, which moves around and spreads to the air, to stay in the food.”
 
Tanaka, who also participated as one of the developers of the first model of UK-based electronics maker Dyson’s vacuum cleaner, started researching about water molecules around 40 years ago as a researcher. He decided to use its tech to develop kitchen appliances and commercialize them as a startup from September 2014. “I was interested in bringing a revolution to food through physics and without using any chemical substances.”

According to the company, Evertron’s sales last year reached around 10 billion won($8.53 million).

Although he had confidence about potential in water molecular technology, Tanaka also said that it was not easy to secure funds as a startup. “I went through some hard time because development takes a long time.”

Moreover, since funding it also crucial for global expansion, Lee noted that the company is also hoping to secure funds separately as a Korean unit in the near future.

By Song Seung-hyun (ssh@heraldcorp.com)