Korea Forest Service "Promoting Korean Forest Products in Central Paris... Targeting European Markets"

From December 8th to 9th, local visitors at the 2022 Paris K-Food Fair held in Paris, France, learned about the excellence of Korean forest products at the domestic export forest products promotion booth. Photo by Korea Forest Service

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The Korea Forest Service has launched an initiative to target the European market for Korean forest products, using Paris, France as a foothold. Europe has recently shown increasing interest in health foods, and the Korea Forest Service expects that developing unique menus incorporating forest products could lead to an expansion in exports of Korean forest products.

On the 12th, the Korea Forest Service announced that it operated a promotional pavilion for domestic export forest products at the ‘2022 Paris K-Food Fair’ recently held in Paris, France.

The Paris K-Food Fair took place in the underground exhibition hall of the Louvre Museum, one of the world’s top three museums located in central Paris.

The event combined consumer experiences such as exhibitions, tastings, and cultural activities with a large-scale export consultation meeting (B2B). Over the two days, more than 7,000 visitors attended the exhibition.

The Korea Forest Service operated six food promotional pavilions, including one for forest products, and facilitated the participation of a total of 14 Korean brands, food service companies, and Korean supermarkets active locally.

The forest products promotional pavilion at the exhibition displayed 23 items, including chestnuts, dried persimmons, jujubes, shiitake mushrooms, wild ginseng, omija (Schisandra berries), and convenient dried wild greens.

Overseas buyers and consumers visiting the pavilion had the opportunity to sample forest products such as roasted chestnuts, dried persimmon strips, jujube chips, shiitake mushroom snacks, and jujube tea through free tasting sessions.

In particular, the Korea Forest Service held an export consultation meeting for Korean forest products, providing a platform for domestic companies such as Mungyeong Omija Valley Agricultural Cooperative, Gyeongseong Shiitake Mushroom Farm, and Cheongdowon Gam Agricultural Corporation to discover new business partners in Europe.

The consultation meeting was conducted in a one-on-one tailored format, involving 29 domestic export companies and 45 overseas corporate buyers. Through this, Korean companies achieved consultation results worth approximately 1.9 million USD with foreign buyers.

The Korea Forest Service plans to provide follow-up support to export companies that secured contracts and consultation results, including inviting buyers, utilizing overseas logistics centers for export forest products, obtaining overseas certifications, conducting overseas promotion and marketing projects, entering global online malls, and fostering global leading organizations.

As a side event of the Paris K-Food Fair, cultural activities such as Korean cooking classes (Cooking Atelier), talk shows featuring K-Food experts, traditional Korean games experiences, K-POP cover dance performances, and Taekwondo demonstrations attracted the attention of local visitors to the exhibition.

Among these, the Korean cooking class received positive responses when a local French star chef revealed recipes for chestnut cake and omija syrup aid using Korean forest products like chestnuts and omija.

Park Eun-sik, Director of International Forest Cooperation at the Korea Forest Service, said, “Exports of Korean forest products to Europe are increasing every year. The Paris K-Food Fair was organized to highlight the clean (healthy) image of Korean forest products and promote their distinctive flavors across Europe, including France, thereby raising awareness and expanding exports.”

He added, “The Korea Forest Service will continue to actively support the Korean forest products industry in targeting the European market and expanding the scale of K-Forest Products exports.”

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