aT overhauls public meal-ordering platform so partial outages won't halt entire service

The Public Meal Integrated Platform, known as eaT, is set for a full overhaul so that a failure in one part of the system — such as ingredient ordering or contract processing for schools and daycare centers — will no longer disrupt other services. The revamp aims to strengthen the stability of the platform, which handles about 4 trillion won ($2.91 billion) in food ingredient contracts annually, while also laying the groundwork for future AI applications.

The Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation, known as aT, said Tuesday it has begun development work on the system transition after the Public Meal Integrated Platform was selected for the Ministry of Interior and Safety and the National Information Society Agency's (NIA) cloud-native conversion project.

The platform launched in 2010 as an electronic procurement system for school meal ingredients and now supports food ingredient sourcing across the public meal sector, including schools and daycare centers. As of last year, more than 10,000 schools and daycare centers nationwide use the platform, through which about 4 trillion won in ingredient contracts are concluded each year.

The core of the overhaul is a shift from a single monolithic system to a cloud-native architecture in which functions operate as independent modules. Under this design, a problem in one function will be contained and will not cascade to other services.

Under the current setup, a failure in functions such as ingredient ordering or contract processing can affect other services as well. Once the transition is complete, the rest of the platform will continue running while any individual module's problem is addressed separately.

The new system will also automatically scale computing resources up or down in response to changes in usage. Flexibility and expandability will be enhanced to allow new features to be deployed more quickly.

Through the transition, aT plans to strengthen the continuity and stability of public meal ingredient procurement services and build infrastructure that will make it easier to incorporate AI technology in the future.

aT selected a consortium of Itcenentec, Vaiv and VTW as the project operator. The cloud-native conversion is to be completed by May 2027.

Ki Un-do, aT's retail director, said the transition "lays the foundation for delivering public meal ingredient procurement services more stably to schools and daycare centers across the country." He added that the move "carries great significance in that it equips the public meal sector with a digital foundation to actively leverage AI, in line with the government's AI transformation drive."