Washington & Oregon Wine Delegation to Seoul, Conrad Hotel, January 23, 2015

A joint delegation of 20 wineries from Washington and Oregon state, led by Steve Warner/CEO of Washington State Wine Commission and Margaret Bray/Marketing Manager of Oregon Wine Board, traveled to Seoul, Korea for face-to-face contacts with the Korean wine trade and journalists. Trade tastings as well as educational seminars offered by the delegation in Conrad Hotel Seoul were very well attended by over 250 key decision makers of the Korean wine trade, including importers, distributors, sommeliers, educators and journalists. The wine trade between Korea and the United States continues to show a solid growth, presenting new business opportunity to traders in both countries. Korea's wine imports from the United States through November 2014 amounted to $19 million, up 11 percent from the previous year. Further recovery of the Korean economy in the coming year is likely to generate bigger sales of American wine in Korea.

Gwangju International Food Expo 2014

Kevin Sage-EL, ATO Seoul Director, gave an outreach trip to Gwangju International Food Expo 2014 on November 27 and attended the show opening ceremony along with a dozen honored guests including Hyungkuk Oh, vice mayor of Gwanju city and Younchang Kim, vice major of Daegu city. The trip was mainly for obtaining up-to-date information about the food market in Gwangju area while developing face-to-face contacts with key people in both the local government and food industry. Kevin Sage-EL also gave a visit to a bottling plant under Coca-Cola Beverage Company Korea in Gwangju city and discussed latest issues in fruit juice supply from the United States. Gwangju city is the leading city in Jeonnam province with 1.5 million population. As the center for business and trade in the province, Gwangju city will continue to see a solid growth of its food and beverage industry in the coming year, which should generate new opportunities to American food and agricultural products.

Jeonju Int'l Fermented Food Expo 2014

Kevin Sage-EL, ATO Seoul Director, gave an outreach trip to Jeonju International Fermented Food Expo 2014 on October 23 and attended the show opening ceremony along with a dozen honored guests including Hajin Song, the governor of Jeonbuk province and Ingu Park, the chairman of the Korea Food Industry Association. The trip was mainly for obtaining up-to-date information about the food market in the province while developing face-to-face contacts with key people in both the local government and food industry. Jeonbuk province, one of the leading provinces for the agricultural sector in South Korea currently seeks to develop its food processing industry particularly for the world audience. Under the strong support of the central government, the province has started a construction project earlier this year to build a special industrial zone for food processing industry, "Food Polis - National Food Cluster", which will house numerous food processing companies and research institutes on 2.3 million sq. meter space upon planned completion by 2020. As a result, Jeonbuk province is likely to generate new business opportunities for various American products from food products and ingredients to processing equipment in the near future.