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General News BRIEFS GOURMET NEWS AUGUST 2014 www.gourmetnews.com GENERAL NEWS 4 Eat Drink SF to Provide Full Lineup of Demos, Classes Eat Drink SF, formerly known as SF Chefs, will be held July 27-August 3, 2014 in San Francisco. Eat Drink SF celebrates Northern California's bounty of ingredients, chefs and restaurants, winemakers and wineries, bartenders and bars, brewers and breweries, farmers and artisan producers. The Lexus Grand Tasting will showcase over 140 Bay Area restaurants. In addition, guests will enjoy specialty cocktails from some of the city's best bartenders, as well as wine from local and international wineries. Additional highlights for this year's festival include the San Francisco Chronicle's Top 100 Class of 2014 Dinner, a Food Arts Industry Day, a bar crawl through the Chronicle's Top 100 and cooking demos from Food Network's Next Iron Chef contestant Duskie Estes, Top Chef Masters alum Suvir Saran and Top Chef alum Casey Thompson. For the full lineup of events and to purchase tickets, visit www.eatdrink-sf.com. Expoalimentaria Peru to Bring Buyers to the Andes Expoalimentaria Peru is coming to Lima, August 27-29, attracting exporters and select buyers from all corners of the globe. The event is the largest international trade show in the region, highlighting food and beverages, machinery, equipment, inputs, containers and packaging, services, restaurants and gastronomy. Organizers of this year's event anticipate over 30,000 professionals will visit Expoalimentaria, including producers, food manufacturers, importers, exporters, and suppliers of a range of services and food processing machinery. More than 600 exhibitors will display their merchandise, highlighting innovative trends and best-in-class technology. Expoalimentaria is quickly becoming an important business platform for attendees. The third largest country in South America, Peru has more than 20 international agreements with major economies around the world. The event touts itself as "an excellent opportunity to do business with the world." British School to Host Artisan Cheese Course The Academie Opus Caseus, a professional development center, has launched a new four- day course for English-speaking cheese professionals. The course will focus on the art of cheesemongering in the United Kingdom. The course will take place August 12-15 at The School of Artisan Food in Nottinghamshire, England. The course will include two days of classroom work covering the art of discussing cheese, sensory analysis, cutting and wrapping, sourcing cheese and more. On the third day, attendees will travel to visit three local cheesemakers. The final day of the course will bring attendees to London to visit with top British cheesemongers. The course is limited to ten participants, and a minimum of six enrollments is required for the course to be run. The course has been scheduled to coincide with the Science of Artisan Cheese Conference that will take place August 19-20 in Somerset, England. United States and Korea Form Binational Organic Trade Agreement The United States and Korea recently an- nounced a new organic equivalency arrangement between the two countries. Proponents of the agreement hope that it will serve to reopen a critically important Asian market for U.S. organic processed food products and will create jobs and opportunity for the American organic food and farming sector. "We extend our thanks and congratu- lations to the officials at the U.S. Depart- ment of Agriculture and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative for their suc- cess after a year of rigorous negotia- tions," said Laura Batcha, CEO and Executive Director of the Organic Trade Association. "OTA and the U.S. organic industry have worked diligently to help make this happen. This new pact stream- lines the trade of organic processed food products between the two countries while still upholding the highest stan- dards of organic oversight. It's a win for the organic sectors and for the con- sumers of both nations." Estimates are that under the new streamlined trading system made possi- ble by this arrangement, American ex- ports of organic processed foods and beverages to South Korea, which were valued at around $35 million in 2013, will more than double over the next five years. This is the second organic equivalency partnership formed with a major Asian trading partner within the past year. Last September, the United States and Japan agreed to a similar understanding regard- ing the bilateral trade of organic prod- ucts. Batcha said the progress in Asia builds on the landmark equivalency arrangements with Canada in 2009 and the European Union in 2012, the two biggest trading partners for U.S. organic agriculture. The U.S.-Korea equivalency arrange- ment was formalized on June 30 in sep- arate signings in Seoul and Washington, D.C. and went into effect July 1. Under the pact, South Korea rec- ognizes the USDA's National Organic Program as equivalent to its own or- ganic oversight program. The under- standing, which covers organic condiments, cereal, baby food, frozen meals, milk, alcoholic beverages and other processed products, allows processed organic products certified in South Korea or in the United States to be sold as organic in either country. U.S. organic exports to South Korea have been on the rise in recent years, as the demand for organic products by the country's 50-million plus population, which enjoys the highest per-capita in- come in Asia, has flourished. However, the lucrative South Korean organic mar- ket was effectively closed to the United States at the end of last year due to a change in the Asian country's organic certification requirements. The organic food market in South Korea grew by an average annual rate of 50 percent from 2006 to 2011, and is ex- pected to expand to $6 billion by 2020. In 2011, organic food represented 10 percent of the total agricultural products market in the country. South Koreans are eating more organic packaged foods, or- ganic beverages (especially organic green tea), as well as organic milk and yogurt, along with organic baby food, sweets and bread. South Korea is one of the fastest-grow- ing developed countries in the world with a booming economy. The country's economy is heavily engaged in interna- tional trade, and it ranks as one of the world's top importing nations. South Korea is the fifth-largest foreign market for U.S. agricultural products. The or- ganic equivalency pact functions in ad- dition to the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement signed in March 2012. The new arrangement with Korea comes as demand for organic products in the United States is also booming, Or- ganic sales in the United States totaled $35.1 billion in 2013, a new record – up 12 percent from a year ago. Batcha said that while the robust or- ganic market in the United States has created jobs in the organic sector at four times the national rate, exports are criti- cal for farmers and processors and will spark additional growth. For more information on the details of this arrangement, visit the OTA website at www.ota.com, or the USDA's NOP website at www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/nop. GN California Wine Association Formed to Promote Top California Wineries in Asia The California Wine Association, a new wine trade association in Hong Kong, has been formed to promote and sell top California wines in Asia. "We're focusing on the best the state has to offer," said Alexis Bell, Executive Director and co-founder of the California Wine Association. "We're offering full- service opportunities to interested pro- ducers." Bell and a team of CWA executives have a decade of sales, promotion and business development experience in Asia and have prepared a compelling portfolio of membership benefits designed to ad- dress the challenges faced by California wineries in Asia, both large and small. "We appreciate the good work that the Wine Institute and some of the larger California wineries have done and hope to support and build on their efforts to significantly elevate the California brand in the largest wine market in the world," said Jong Lee, co-founder of CWA. "Our goal is to facilitate successful market entry and help leading wineries achieve commercial critical mass with a trusted and focused industry partner based in the world's number one city for the wine industry, Hong Kong." CWA membership costs $1500. Bene- fits include a Hong Kong address, travel and concierge services, access to trade promotions and events, translation, in- troductions, office services, trademark and domain assistance, access to area in- dustry groups and discounted logistics, design and communications services. "While Asia is already the biggest mar- ket for wine, the appreciation and ap- petite for great wines from around the world is still in its early stages and is rap- idly developing and growing," said Charles Lam, a longtime wine industry and retail executive and a member of CWA's Board of Advisors. "Over the next several years, I fully expect total wine sales in Asia to grow by at least 100 per- cent." CWA's Board of Advisors includes in- dustry leaders in Asia and California. Harvey Posert, PR Director for Robert Mondavi; Charles Lam, former Hong Kong President and Asia CFO of the SOGO Japanese department store chain; and Johnathan Yi, Managing Director of DongA Group, make up the board. For more information on the Califor- nia Wine Association, visit www.cwaa- sia.com, or call 852.5804.9095. GN

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