South Korean dishes promoted with locally-produced ingredients

Monday, Oct 06, 2014 18:54

South Korean dish kimbap. More businesses are producing South Korean dishes using agricultural ingredients made in Viet Nam. — Photo tochefkorea.com

HA NOI (Biz Hub) ─ More businesses are producing South Korean dishes using agricultural ingredients made in Viet Nam, to serve an increasing number of South Koreans in the country.

According to the Cong Thuong (Industry and Trade) newspaper, there are 70,000 to 80,000 South Korean residents in HCM City alone.

Established in this southern city in 2004, Kim&Kim JSC uses ingredients from the Central Highlands province of Da Lat to process such South Korean dishes as kimchi, a traditional fermented dish of vegetables with a variety of seasonings; soya-cake; and fish simmered with chilli.

The Cau Tre Export Goods Processing JSC, another HCM City-based company, co-operates with a South Korean business to produce snacks and ingredients for making kimbap, a dish made from steamed white rice and various ingredients rolled in sheets of dried seaweed, using materials bought from Viet Nam's coastal villages.

According to www.gobizkorea.com, an international commercial website which the South Korean authority and an association involved in small- and medium-sized enterprises operates, a good number of the more than 1,500 South Korean companies operating in Viet Nam are in the Vietnamese agricultural sector, including Daewon GSI Co Ltd, HYSung Vina, Nong San Co Ltd and Soo In Korean Food.

General agricultural services cooperative Anh Dao Co.op in Da Lat said a variety of vegetables in the Central Highlands province were also being exported to South Korea. In early September, the cooperative exported salad to the market through the CJ Group, with headquarters in Seoul, South Korea's capital.

Anh Dao Co.op said it obtained long-term export contracts with prices about 15 per cent higher than domestic selling prices.

South Korean retailer Lotte Mart has also begun to distribute Viet Nam's farm produce through its supermarket system in South Korea, according to Cong Thuong.

Oveaseas student Hoang Oanh in South Korea told the newspaper that Vietnamese residents there no longer have to wait for their families to send products made in Viet Nam by airfreight. "Many South Korean people also buy vegetables, dried vermicelli, pickles and other food imported from Viet Nam," Oanh said.

The director of a coffee company in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak said his group was negotiating with a South Korean business over investing in a coffee production chain. He revealed that his partner planned to serve the South Korean community in HCM City and aimed to export goods to South Korea in the long run.

Some Vietnamese localities have reportedly reserved new lands and crafted preferential policies for South Korean enterprises, predicting that they will increase their investments in agriculture in the near future.

The People's Committee of the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho said a nursery garden for Viet Nam-South Korea industrial technology was expected to come into operation here in the second quarter of next year. This centre will promote agricultural and seafood development, and some South Korean businesses plan to invest here.

Back Eun A from South Korea, who has been living in HCM City for 10 years, told Cong Thuong that her family used to be worried about the taste of daily food but was now satisfied cooking dishes using locally-produced ingredients. — VNS

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