German food companies participated in the Seoul Food 2015 exhibition at KINTEX in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province, from May 12-15, showcasing beer, coffee, meat, sweets, dairy products, soft drinks and food service equipment.

Thermo Future Box, Brauerei Zoller-Hof Graf-Fleischhut, Deutsche Extrakt Kaffee, Heinrich Manten, IQ 4 YOU, Miller conSup Gesellschaft fur Import und Export, Sanotact Limited, Schneider, and Zott Dairy Asia Pacific, participated.

The German food industry is Europe’s largest, with 6,000 companies employing over 550,000 and generating 175 billion euros every year. Ninety-five percent of German food and drink suppliers are small and medium-sized companies. Most of them are family-owned with histories running back centuries.

The most popular categories are meat and meat products, followed by dairy and bakery goods and confectionery.

Due to the world-renowned quality, competitive price, reliable supply and large product range of German foods, the export value of the industry grew by more than 160 percent from 1998 to 2013.

With the world’s oldest beverage quality law ― the German beer purity law of 1516 ― Germany produces over 5,000 beer varieties.

“Although Germans are passionate beer drinkers, we are not the world’s beer-drinking champions as the common perception suggests. We hold the third place globally in beer consumption with 107 liters per capita,” the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture said in a press release.

The import value of food and beverages from Germany to Korea increased by 50 percent in 2014 from a year age at 420 million euros. Pork belly, in particular, has seen a fourfold increase.

German wine, dairy products, pork offal and baking ingredients also have high potential for imports, said the BMEL, which supported the participating firms.

(joel@heraldcorp.com)