Park Jin-young Spends $1.5M a Year on JYP's Organic Cafeteria: 'I Made It Thinking of My Own Kids'

Park Jin-young revealed on MBC's Omniscient Interfering View (airing at 11:10 p.m. KST on the 1st) that JYP Entertainment's in-house cafeteria costs roughly 2 billion KRW annually to run, with organic kimchi alone accounting for 220 million KRW of that figure. At current exchange rates, that puts the total at approximately $1.5 million USD per year, for a single building cafeteria.

The origin story matters as much as the number. Park said he was moved by seeing trainees solve the hunger problem with convenience store runs between practice sessions. "I made it thinking of my own kids," he told the program, describing the decision to build a fully organic operation. It is the kind detail that fits what JYP has always projected publicly: a company founder who treats artist welfare as a personal responsibility.

The cafeteria is not staying the same size. With a move to a new headquarters on the horizon, Park said the kitchen footprint will expand to three times its current size, and the new facility will also include a packed-lunch production system. The goal is to ensure staff and artists can eat a proper meal even when they are out on external schedules, away from the building.

Park's investment in employee health extends past food budgets. When a team member fell ill, he reportedly drafted a lengthy care message drawing on years of self-taught study in human physiology and nutrition. Whether or not it constitutes medical advice, the gesture lines up with the cafeteria story: a hands-on approach to the people working under him.

The episode also gives viewers a different side of the man. Park recently released a new single WET, and part of the broadcast covers behind-the-scenes footage from that project, including content shoots where he wore a fluorescent vest and a backless outfit, having trained down to a reported 9.2% body fat for the comeback. The production team framed it plainly: this episode is about Park Jin-young the singer, not the label head or his current role as co-chair of the Presidential Committee on Popular Culture Exchange. On the numbers alone, the cafeteria segment should be the more memorable half of the hour.