Ex-baseball player who failed at 11 businesses strikes it big with sausages

Former baseball player Kim Byung-hyun, who has shuttered 11 businesses, is drawing attention after striking it big with a sausage venture.

Tuesday's episode of the SBS variety program "Same Bed, Different Dreams Season 2 — You Are My Destiny" showed Kim supplying sausages to Oktoberfest Seoul, a world-renowned beer festival.

Kim introduced his 330-square-meter sausage factory and said he had secured an exclusive contract to supply a combined 30,000 sausages and haxen to Oktoberfest Seoul, the first edition of the festival held in Korea.

"We got a call from Germany saying our sausages were the closest to authentic German ones," he said. "If this event goes well, we go global."

"The event runs for 10 days, and we need to produce 25,000 sausages and 5,000 haxen," he added. "It's the largest order in our company's history — this event is make or break for us."

Kim set a goal of finishing first in sales on the day of the event with his sausages and haxen.

"Beating the chicken stall will be tough, but we'll give it a shot," he said. "The final target is 2,000 units sold."

Early in the day, orders poured into the chicken stall just as Kim had expected, but sausage and haxen orders soon followed at a comparable pace. By the end of the day, sausages and haxen had sold 1,500 and 740 units respectively, finishing first and second in sales.

Total sales for the day came to roughly 57 million won ($43,100) from sausages and about 36 million won from haxen, bringing combined revenue to around 93 million won.

Kim has previously said that before his sausage business he had closed down 11 ventures, ranging from a Japanese restaurant and a steakhouse to a Thai restaurant, a burger joint and a ramen shop.