Preparations start months in advance to ensure Korean athletes at the Olympics have a plentiful supply of their favorite food from home.

Under a project first introduced at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and expanded to the Winter Games in 2014 in Sochi, the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee sets up dedicated cooking facilities close to its athletes’ residences.

For the Milan Cortina Olympics, the three main locations — Milan, Cortina and Livigno — each have their own facility, from which insulated bags depart twice a day to bring athletes the comfort of their accustomed food.

“It only takes 15 or 20 minutes from the kitchens to each Olympic Village,” said Lee Dahyun, a manager at Korea’s national training center, standing in the airy Milan cooking facility at a small guesthouse with glass walls facing a leafy courtyard.

Before a van can deliver the meals, the chefs meticulously distribute the contents of several large trays among the compartments of neatly lined lunch boxes, which are then stacked in insulated bags alongside steel thermoses holding soups.

“Koreans really care about food,” Lee said, quoting a Korean proverb about “rice power” — the energy Koreans draw from eating rice.

“It shows how we think food is really important,” she said, adding that what started as a way to meet athletes’ requests has developed into “an essential project for Team Korea.”

A nutritionist oversees the daily menus prepared by staff from the national training center for the 130-athlete delegation, with more than 200 meals delivered across the three locations between lunch and dinner each day.

“We really do our best to recreate the same environment: the same kitchen, same people, same taste,” Lee said.

To ensure key Korean ingredients such as kimchi — the ubiquitous spicy fermented cabbage — are readily available, the Team Korea Nutrition and Catering Support Centre begins preparing supplies in October before shipping them to the Olympic venues.

“It takes around three months to prepare the Korean ingredients,” Lee said, adding that the container ship with provisions left in November and docked in Italy in January.

“We also need fresh meat, vegetables and fruit. Those ingredients are supplied from Italy, so we use two tracks,” she said.

Over the years, the catering service has developed special self-heating lunch boxes, which Lee said are particularly popular with athletes in Livigno, where the freeski and snowboard events are held in below-zero temperatures.

“Usually, athletes cannot eat our food immediately due to their competition and training schedules, but using our heated lunch boxes they can have delicious and warm food,” she said.