Belgian-born broadcaster Julian Quintart targeted a cafe's packaging as "excessive packaging" and then deleted it. Netizens criticized Julian, saying he used someone else's photo without properly knowing the facts and deleted the post without apologizing.
Recently Julian posted a photo on his social media account story saying, "Wait, not double cups but now triple cups? Why do they do this? Excessive packaging of excessive packaging. It shouldn't be just this business. Could the people running it please think about it one more time?"
The photo showed a takeout drink with triple packaging and the cafe in the background. The brand is known as a cafe offering unique cola-based drinks and syrups and is reported to be located in Jongno District, Seoul.
Julian, who is also an environmental activist, left the post criticizing the triple packaging of a takeout drink as environmental waste, and people who only saw Julian's post looked up the cafe's social accounts and raised their voices in criticism.
A person surnamed A, who appears to run the cafe, wrote on an online community, "At first, when a celebrity mentioned me on SNS I was just excited and planned to hurriedly write a thank-you reply, but it wasn't that. It was a mention criticizing me for over-packaging the cup."
A said in a direct message, "The ice made by our ice machine is flake-type ice, small granule-type ice. Because we make it with methods and ingredients not sold in Korea, we used that ice to chill drinks quickly, and the faster it melts the blander and more spoiled the taste becomes, so we started using insulated cups layered together. In summer the use of these cups became even more unavoidable. I fully understand and appreciate the sentiment of thinking about the environment and consider it a healthy mindset, but as a small one-person business owner I'm very afraid of the repercussions and impact of this post. We will consider other methods or options, so please delete the publicly mentioned post, story and thread and other posts."
He added, "If you look at early blog reviews of our shop, we did not use triple cups from the beginning. Rather than overdoing takeout containers, we once served beverages in standing takeout plastic beverage pouches to keep it simple. Then customers complained about discomfort and cold hands, so we switched to regular cups, and as ice melted faster we changed to the current container. The comments saying it was 100% for design are not true."
A said, "I asked for the post to be deleted, but someone who was actively on SNS until 10 minutes ago suddenly disappeared and I don't know what to do. Honestly, people are still leaving abusive comments and I'm so scared my hands go cold and tremble. I honestly don't know how to respond," expressing vague fear.
Meanwhile, a comment on Julian's post read, "If you care about the environment, why don't you carry a personal tumbler? If you care about the environment, shouldn't you have accepted it with a personal tumbler?" It turned out the photo Julian posted was not taken by him but taken from someone else, and Julian deleted the post from all SNS. However, there has been no apology so far.
Netizens reacted, "If he misunderstood, shouldn't he apologize," "That's too much for a shop that makes such efforts," "Not surprising from Julian," "He didn't even visit; he just reposted reviews and photos to attack them," "That's really cruel," "I liked their image but it's totally ruined."
Julian is a Belgian-born broadcaster who became known through shows such as Non-Summit. Active as an environmental activist, he received the ministry of environment commendation in 2025, the Republic of Korea Green Climate Award citizen category excellence award in 2023, and served as a European Union climate action goodwill ambassador.
[OSEN]