Foreign cases assure success of 'Foodpolis'

By Chung Ah-young

A food industry complex, the Korean National Food Cluster is expected to boost the nation’s food exports to neighboring countries such as Japan and China.

The government’s project to create a food complex in North Jeolla Province by 2015, will likely attract high-profile food companies and research and development institutes, enabling them to adjust to fast change in the global food market. As with other similar projects around the world, the new cluster, known as “Foodpolis,” is intended to reinvigorate food-related industries that can enable regional growth.

Food Valley in the Netherlands houses more than 1,440 multinational food companies and 20 research centers along with 70 science-related firms, creating thousands of jobs. The complex creates new and innovative food items by developing solid networks between food manufacturers and academic institutes. It produces and exports food by combining imported raw materials with state-of-the-art technology.

The cluster attracts skilled workers and researchers from around the world. Of some 15,000 researchers working in the complex, 40 percent are foreigners.

Oresund, which was created in 2000 to support natural food products, is a successful cross-national collaboration between Denmark and southern Sweden. The food zone surrounded by the eastern Danish city Copenhagen and the southern Swedish county of Skane boasts well-equipped basic distribution infrastructure.

It combines information technology, food science, logistics and the environment. More than 1,000 companies such as Nestle and Carlsberg are located in the zone with 225,000 of the population employed in the zone. The southern part of Sweden produces 50 percent of food-related products, serving as a traditional food base in the country.

ProViva, a healthy food brand, is the outcome of collaboration between the corporation and farmers with 60 billion won in annual sales.

Emilia-Romagana in Italy was created spontaneously in response to its regional diversity of natural ingredients outstands with a large number of small and medium-sized companies operating there. The majority of the food companies are specialized in producing traditional products such as ham and cheese. Some 100,000 workers are employed at the cluster. It controls the quality of the food produced here through a labeling system.

Napa Valley in the United States is a renowned region for producing quality wines with a more time-honored history of generating grapes since the 1800s. Particularly, the region became widely known with the Robert Mondavi winery in the 1960s. The wine cluster connects research and development (R&D) facilities and tourism, turning more than 400 wineries into places to gain hands-on experience.

There are many reasons why multinational food firms and R&D centers will likely be located in the Food Cluster in Korea’s southern city of Iksan. It will become a gateway to Northeast Asian markets because it is adjacent to 60 cities with over 1 million of the population within a two-hour flight and located on the West Sea, close to Chinese food markets, ensuring lower food production costs.

The food cluster is located in order to easily ship products all over Korea. At the same time, access to China, Japan and other Southeast Asian nations via sea and air is easy. Foreign food product makers can use the Food Cluster as their Asian export base.

The Korean food complex will specialize in traditional fermented foods, high valued everyday food, processed organic food and other commonly consumed food, which reflects the high demand of healthy products.