South Korean food exporters have signed 11 preliminary agreements worth a combined $15 million at a trade fair in Melbourne, Australia, South Korea’s Agriculture Ministry and its food export agency said Monday.
The event, running Thursday to Saturday at the Melbourne Showgrounds, was the first K-Food Fair held in Oceania, organizers said. It paired a food trade show with an expo focused on the Korean Wave, the international popularity of South Korean entertainment, beauty products and other consumer goods. The agencies held a similar joint event in Hanoi, Vietnam, in July.
The fair brought together 35 South Korean food and agricultural companies and 74 buyers from Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia. They held 410 meetings over two days, organizers said.
The $15 million figure represents the combined value of the memorandums of understanding signed at those meetings.
Rice noodles and makguksu, a Korean buckwheat noodle dish served with perilla oil, drew interest from buyers looking for convenient meals, organizers said. Buyers also showed interest in baked goods and frozen desserts made with regional ingredients, as well as high-protein drinks and ready-to-eat foods.
About 10,000 people attended the two-day public portion of the fair, where they could sample and buy products including instant noodles, kimchi and fermented sauces. Exhibitors paired tteokbokki, spicy rice cakes, with rice balls and served sweet drinks alongside spicy foods.
A cooking demonstration featured tteokgalbi, Korean beef patties seasoned with ingredients including soy sauce, doenjang (fermented soybean paste) and gochujang (fermented chili paste). The demonstration used beef, an ingredient familiar to Australian shoppers, to show how they could use Korean seasonings in meals at home.
Jeon Gi-chan, an export official with the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corp., said the agency would continue tailoring its promotions to local tastes and shopping habits as it seeks new markets for South Korean food producers.
shinyb@heraldcorp.com
