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Visitors look around a promotion booth for kimchi during the Korean Kimchi Day fair at Bankapi Department Store in Bangkok, Thailand, in June.
/ Courtesy of NAAS |
Efforts Necessary to Create Localized Items, Find Local Treasures
By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter
 Food promotion is not just about publicizing dishes and restaurants. In the eyes of policymakers, all those promotional initiatives also lead to another huge objective ― beefing up the food and farming industries of their country.
And that's what the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has been committed to throughout this year for the globalization of Korean cuisine, or "hansik." Earlier this month, the ministry announced it will initiate an ambitious plan to nurture the nation's food industry with the injection of 5 trillion won ($4.3 billion) over the next three years.
According to the plan, overall sales for the Korea's food industry, currently around 100 trillion won in total, will grow 7 percent annually to over 150 trillion won in 2012. Exports of farming and fisheries products are also expected to jump to $10 billion by then, from the current $3.8 billion.
"By advancing the food industry, farming and fishing will be able to develop into a more profitable industry," Minister of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Chang Tae-pyong said after unveiling a policy package with that outline.
On the global stage, the food industry reaches $4 trillion overall and is bigger than the auto and information technology industries. Growing interest and the importance of food safety across the world shows prospects are positive for more growth in this industry.
Korea's food businesses, however, are not mature enough to compete globally. Of its 8,500 food makers, more than 90 percent have less than 50 employees. Sales for Korean companies average at 5.7 billion won, and averaged annual sales of restaurants and eateries here are tallied at 930 million won ($80,485), lagging behind that of Japan with $361,092 or the United States with $511,000.
Only eight local makers post annual sales over 1 trillion won. Korea's exports of processed food amounted to $1.9 billion last year, with some 40 countries ahead of it.
Emerging in such circumstances is the significance of research and development (R&D), which will be used in processing various farm products into labeled food products available at home and abroad.
The minister plans to carry out several policies for the project. Budget for food R&D will be expanded to 1.2 percent of overall sales from the current 0.34 percent, while the groundwork will also be set for a food industry cluster complex that will be built in North Jeolla Province.
Industrialization for six traditional condiments and fermented foodstuffs will be paralleled in an effort to strengthen their global competitiveness.
In addition, the ministry says it will establish a new institute for kimchi and seek the standardization of three Korean food items: Korean chili sauce and bean paste, or "gochujang" and "doenjang," and ginseng.
Promotion of Korean food ingredients, such as frozen fruits and cleaned vegetables, will follow to broaden their outbound shipments.
The Korea Agro-Fisheries Trade Corp. (aT) launched a series of Korean food fairs this week in five cities in Japan, Russia, India and China, which will continue for three weeks.
Unlike many other state-hosted food exhibitions, these fairs are mostly about promoting ingredients for clients with local catering and restaurant franchises.
Some experts point out some "refining" of well-known traditional items like kimchi should be given priority through quality control systems.
Being home to the pickled vegetables doesn't guarantee profitability for its makers. In the last three years, Korea posted a 93-billion-won deficit in trades of kimchi.
Struggling kimchi exports are also linked to past hygiene problems. Korea's kimchi exports to Japan, tallied at $36 million in 1996, surged eight years later to $97 million following the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup, but shrank in 2005 as parasite eggs were found in some Chinese-produced products by Korean makers.
An official at a state-run institute said development of more varied products based on the representative Korean food item is necessary.
"More projects are necessary for kimchi in developing secondary processed products such as kimchi sauce and dietary supplements containing its healthy ingredients," Han Gwi-jung, a senior researcher at the National Academy of Agricultural Science (NAAS), an umbrella of the state-run Rural Development Administration, told The Korea Times.
Efforts should continue as well to introduce "localized" kimchi, made out of peculiar materials from other countries, she added.
Han's institute has held two promotional events for kimchi lately, in Thailand in June and in Vietnam earlier this month.
In collaboration with several Korean manufacturers, those events featured various programs including cooking classes and also presented kimchi made with local Southeast Asian food such as fish sauce.
"I was so thrilled at the enthusiastic responses from locals there. Thanks to the popularity of Korean dramas and movies, people there are more curious about Korean food than ever," Han said. More than 45,000 people visited the three-day exhibition in Vietnam this month.
Promotion of kimchi will reach its limit if the food is treated as a side dish as in Korea, according to the researcher.
"To many foreign customers, kimchi is more recognized as a kind of salad. That's why we need to develop different localized versions," Han said. "This will also help develop a bigger fan base overseas for Korean cuisine with healthy benefits."
Korean and Southeast Asian cuisines have a surprising similarity in tastes and ingredients, so introducing localized kimch will ultimately be helpful in promoting the original kimchi, she said.
Aside from overseas marketing, the NAAS has been working on compiling a database for a variety of kimchi. Hundreds of standardized recipes for the dish have been collected under the project.
Also developed are provincial dishes. Long overshadowed by industrial indifferences, those food items rich in regional color and characters could offer some fresh breakthroughs for Korean food, Han hopes.
Through works of nearly a decade, the NAAS has completed recipes for thousands of those provincial dishes in a nine volume book set.
Currently the organization is working with Naver, the nation's No. 1 Web portal site, to offer a mobile service for the recipes.
In an attempt to push its boundaries overseas, the NAAS will start a new project next year as it will begin building up a database for culinary culture in different countries. Starting with one Southeast Asia and one in Latin America, the project will continue for about the next 10 years.
"This project will offer us better prospects on how to appeal to the tastes of different people in different cultures," Han said.
Also, a practical set of recipes for provincial dishes will be published later this year. Taking into consideration fast-growing multi-cultural households, those recipes will be translated into several foreign languages from next year, she added.
hckim@koreatimes.co.kr
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