IFT Show 2014, New Orleans, June 21-23, 2014

ATO Seoul led a food ingredients Korean buying mission to New Orleans, Louisiana and State of Mississippi to develop contacts with U.S. suppliers of food ingredients for processing. At the annual IFT show, the Korean buyers met with U.S. suppliers and reported $1.43 million in expected purchases over the next 12 months as a result of the show. Juices, sugar, sauces, dried fruits and nuts were principal food ingredients of interest sought by buyers. While the primary target of the mission was the IFT show in New Orleans, the team visited the city of Hattiesburg, Mississippi for site visits to blueberry farms, processing facilities, local neighborhood grocery, local restaurant and farmer’s house. The site visits were supported and arranged by U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council.

KORUS Agricultural Trade Roundtable, July 11, 2014

KORUS Agricultural Trade Roundtable, hosted by ATO Seoul on July 11, brought 80 leaders of the Korean food industry together under the theme of building stronger trade partnership between Korea and the United States. The event provided the audience with informative presentations on (1) International Grain Price Outlook (Korea Rural Economic Institute, KREI); (2) Korea’s Agricultural Imports Trends (ATO Seoul); (3) Outstanding trade/regulatory issues – Rice Tariffication, MRL, Biotech Labeling, Organic Equivalency Agreement, and KORUS FTA Origin Verification (OAA Seoul). In addition, the event provided a venue for the industry representatives to network each other and to share new ideas and business opportunities. Copies of the presentations are available from ATO Seoul upon request.

Washington State Wine Commission Seminar & Tasting in Seoul

Washington State Wine Commission (WSWC) brought a delegation of seven wineries to Seoul and hosted a trade seminar, tasting and wine-sampling dinner June 3, 2014. The event was differentiated from WSWC's previous delegations to Korea as it specifically targeted the Korean audience in the restaurant and bar trade. The event started in the morning with a detailed seminar on Washington state viticulture and wine styles, followed by trade tasting in the afternoon and a food-wine paring dinner in the evening. Rob Andersen, the marketing director of WSWC who led the delegation pointed out that Korea is one of the top priority markets in Asia for the Washington wine industry and WSWC is committed to help its member wineries expand business opportunities in Korea with various yet targeted marketing programs in the coming year. Korea's wine imports from the United States in 2014 through April increased 10.5 percent over the same period of the previous year, which was much higher than the overall wine import growth from all countries, 7 percent. More information of the wine market in Korea can be found in Korea Wine Market Brief 2013 that ATO Seoul published.