Ugly Agricultural Products Secure Demand Channels...Reborn as Export Heroes

Signing of Win-Win Business Agreement Among Farms, Processing Companies, Overseas Franchises, and Distribution Corporations

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyunjung] Export farms struggling due to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) have secured stable demand channels to ship non-standard agricultural products, also known as "motnani" agricultural products.

On the 17th, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced that it signed a multilateral business agreement involving the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation (aT), four representative export companies of producers for four items (paprika, strawberry, grape, mushroom), processing companies, and overseas franchise companies, totaling 11 participants, to promote the export of processed foods made from non-standard agricultural products as raw materials. The signing ceremony was held on the 15th.

Non-standard products refer to products that fail to meet quality classification standards such as sorting, shape, color, freshness, dryness, defects, ripeness, and sorting status according to the characteristics of agricultural product items or varieties. Until now, export farms had no stable demand channels for non-standard products, so they either disposed of them themselves or sold them irregularly at low prices.

According to this agreement, the representative export companies of producers will supply motnani agricultural products stably, Arafruit, one of the agreement companies, will be responsible for export product development, planning, and order management, Morgan Food will handle product manufacturing through processing, and Freshis will be in charge of discovering overseas buyers and export agency services.

Overseas franchise companies (CJ Foodville, Coffee Bay, Didim, etc.) will actively promote stable purchase of processed products, menu development, and expansion of overseas consumption.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs will support smooth project operation by policy planning and coordinating interests among participating organizations, and aT will perform roles such as assigning and managing tasks for each participating company and supporting export projects as a party to the agreement.

Through this business agreement, the development of processed products using motnani agricultural products for the four items is expected to accelerate, and once product development is completed, export targets will be set by item and policy support will be promoted. In the case of strawberries, processing projects have been underway since March 17, and so far, 97 tons of motnani strawberries have been processed into products, with plans to process about 500 tons annually.

Kim Jonggu, Food Industry Policy Officer at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, said, "There are many difficulties in exporting agricultural products due to local movement restrictions and weakened consumer sentiment caused by COVID-19," adding, "We plan to actively promote small but tangible projects in the field, such as supporting the processing of 'motnani' agricultural products that can help stabilize domestic supply and demand and improve farm income."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.