A Belgian priest named Didier t’Serstevens (or Chi Chong-hwan in Korean) arrived in Imsil, North Jeolla in 1967 as a missionary, but after spending some time in the region, he saw solving poverty as more urgent than missionary action. The priest bought some dairy cows for residents and Imsil came to house Korea’s first cheese factory.
As Imsil cheese gained recognition, pizza brands used the word Imsil in their title, whether they used Imsil cheese or not. In 2005, the Imsil regional government decided to unify the region’s pizza brands into one franchise, “Imsil N Cheese Pizza.â€
“This way, we prevent any copycat brands from ruining the Imsil cheese image as well as create a stable source of cash for the region’s dairy farms,†said Kim Yeong-jin, a manager in the Imsil regional government’s cheese business division. The government chose NK Logistics, a local company, to run the business. In return for using the Imsil N Cheese Pizza name, the company gives a portion of its profit to the government. There are now 180 Imsil N Cheese Pizza branches nationwide.