A Stockman with a Salary of 4 Billion Won Becomes a Bamboo Salt Merchant, "Globalization of bamboo salt, I'm sure it's possible!"

A man who was a legendary stockbroker in Korea is now selling bamboo salts in Canada. This is the story of Choi Sung-hoon, who is in charge of the Canadian distributor of Insanga. No one told him to do it, and no one encouraged him. Instead, he was driven by the conviction that "if the salt is so good, Koreans in Canada will definitely like it, and Canadians will definitely like it." I met him in March when he returned home for a short time.

Insanga has more than 300,000 members. It is a remarkable record for a food company to have more than 300,000 members. Until recently, Choi didn't know about InSanga and its bamboo salt. He only knew that bamboo salt was good for gums. However, he has been the distributor of Insanga in Canada since May last year. He personally visited Insanga's Kangbuk store and told them he wanted to sell bamboo salt in Canada. Currently, he sells Insanga bamboo salt and other products offline at Korean supermarkets, health centers, and clinics in the Vancouver area where he lives, and also operates an online market.

"I feel a mission to help people in Canada to know and experience bamboo salt," said Choi. "I know how good phosphoric acid products such as bamboo salt and bamboo gourd pills are, so I am excited and enjoy explaining the products."

I moved to Canada 6 years ago...
Learned about bamboo salt through his sister's illness

Sung Hoon Choi moved to Vancouver, Canada in 2016 for his two children's education. His original plan was to live there for three to four years before returning to Korea in 2017, but an unexpected resignation accelerated his move.

"I worked at a brokerage for about 10 years, and I was a trader in futures options, which people say are the riskiest of all investments. I moved around a lot, and my salary, including incentives, went up. It's easy to think of it like a professional baseball player. When you're good, you get paid a lot of money, and when you don't perform, you get cut from the team. I used to make about 4 billion won a year, and in my last job, I was let go after two months, so after six months of preparation, my whole family went to Vancouver. I was planning to come back to Korea, but now I've been living there for six years."

When a trader earns 4 billion won a year in the securities industry, he or she quickly becomes a household name among industry insiders. Choi's case also became a hot topic in the industry. He became known to a wide audience when he appeared on a popular YouTube channel about investing. If you search his name on the internet, you'll see a lot of related content. Keywords include "billionaire trader" and "stock legend. After such an unusual career, how did he become an avid phosphate bamboo salt fanatic?

"I got a call from my sister in Korea that she was diagnosed with colon cancer, and I came to Korea and stayed with her for about a month and took care of her. I saw her eating phosphoric acid bamboo salt, and she was roasting garlic and dipping it in bamboo salt. She didn't know phosphoric acid, and when she got sick, I think she recommended that I try it because there are some around. She said it was good for you, so she bought me a bunch of bamboo shoots and I tried it. I was exhausted, but I immediately felt light and my stool condition improved, so I thought it might help if I kept taking it."

"I want everyone to eat bamboo salt!"

During his sister's illness, Choi studied bamboo salt through books and videos. He couldn't let her eat salt just because an acquaintance recommended it. But the more he studied bamboo salt, phosphoric acid, and Dr. Kim Il-Hoon's medicine and philosophy, the more he understood it. She realized how ignorant she had been about salt, and regretted that she had been on a low-salt diet because she had fallen into the preconceived notion that eating fresh was good for her health.

"At the time, I thought my sister was eating too much salt, but looking back, I realize she was eating too little. If I had known then what I know now about bamboo salt, I would have told her to eat 10 times more."

Choi's sister was young at the time of her diagnosis, when cancer cells spread quickly, and colorectal cancer is hard to detect and has a very poor prognosis.

When you go through something big in your life, it can change your path a bit. Choi's interest in health was sparked by his sister, and he realized that not only he, but also his family and friends should eat bamboo salt. And when he realized that premium salts from France and Germany were gaining popularity in the global market, he realized that bamboo salt could be a viable business idea beyond Canada.

"At first, I wanted to take as much bamboo salt as I could and feed it to my acquaintances, but then I thought, why don't I take it home and spread the word about bamboo salt? It was frustrating to be the only one who knew about this good thing. I took bamboo salt and other products to Canada around March or April last year, so it's been just one year since I became a distributor. I introduced phosphate bamboo salt to the Korean community in Canada, and many people responded to it. It's doing about 120% better than I expected at first."

In addition to Koreans living in Canada, Mr. Choi's customers include Chinese and Canadians. It's not easy to introduce phosphate bamboo salt to foreigners who don't know about it and get them to buy it. However, with the right direction and steady progress, you will eventually reach your destination at the end of the road.

"I don't approach it as a medicine for sick people, but rather as a salt that everyone eats, and if you're going to eat it, eat a good salt that's full of minerals. In Canada, there's a lot of interest in healthy eating, just like in Korea, so I think if I continue to promote it properly, it will become popular through word of mouth. I don't have any ambitions to become a big success at once, but I expect it to grow steadily, just like the path that Insanga has taken. It would be great to be able to contribute to the globalization of Insanga in addition to my personal success."