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.

Natural Product Expo East (NPEE) 2014 Show

ATO Seoul recruited 10 Korean organic & natural products importers to the Natural Product Expo East (NPEE) 2014 Show in Baltimore, Maryland to develop trade opportunities. Maryland Department of Agriculture organized the site visits in Maryland in conjunction with NPEE 2014 Show. Site visits included a horseradish manufacturing company, Tulkoff’s, Towson Farmers’ Market in City of Towson, a natural & organic cow farm producing fresh milk and ice cream to their neighborhood from about 150 cows, Prigel Family Creamery and, Boordy Vineyard. It was an extraordinary opportunity to learn and experience U.S. farming, manufacturing and farmers’ market in this state. ATO Seoul arranged to visit several organic and high-end grocery stores including WholeFoods Markets, Traders Joe’s and several restaurants in the city to give Korean buyers a deeper the understanding of U.S. market for natural and organic food products. Post activity survey resulted in $1.37 million sales from the buying mission members over the next 12 months. Organic Trade Association (OTA) invited a dinner for Korean buying mission members with Mr. Robert B Anderson, Ms. Angela Jagiello, Ms. Monique Marez and Mr. Hal Shenson. During the dinner, discussions included the Korea-US Equivalency Agreement which was signed and implemented since July 1, 2014.