“The Korean food export industry is shifting from the ‘push’paradigm to a ‘pull’strategy thanks to Korea’s rising national standing and a surging demand for Korean products,” Park Chong-seo, executive vice president for export promotion at Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation (aT) said. 

Park said in an interview on Oct. 9, “Korea has seen its food exports double during the period between 2008 and 2011 with annual growth rates ranging from 20 percent to 30 percent in recent years.” He added that the Korean food export sector has chalked up a 4.9 percent increase in the first nine months of this year, unusually lower than in previous years, even though many other industrial fields have suffered setbacks in export achievements due to the overall global downturn. 

He said he was still upbeat about the possibility of achieving this year’s target of exporting $10 billion worth of Korean agro-fisheries products, citing a surge in their consumption, particularly for making soup foods during winter. 

He made the remarks at the aT Center where they were hosting the “Buy Korean Food Autumn 2012”

Park said foreign consumer’s preference for Korean food products is surging due to Korea’s rising national standing and the spread of hallyu, better known as the “Korean Wave,” so foreign markets are changing from the “push” paradigm to the “pull” strategy.

The Korean food export industry boasts a wide assortment of Korean food products, including hit ramyeon (instant noodle) items, which are high-quality but still lower in price than their Japanese counterparts, he noted. 

Park shrugged off some people’s criticism over the nation’s strategies to globalize Korean food with a dearth of flagship restraints in global metropolitan cities. 

He said, “The globalization of Korean food, now in an early stage, seems to be cruising from the overall perspective, compared to Thai and Japanese cuisine that have been accepted as global foods over more than two or three decades.” 

Two Korean restaurants have been put on the Michelin guide recently. In the latest development, Jungsik, a new Korean fine dining venue in New York City, which is run by chef Im Jung-sik, was added to the guide on Oct. 3.  

Things have changed dramatically with locals making up a roughly 70 percent share of the clients at overseas Korean restaurants, a stark departure from the composition of a majority of Korean travelers and residents. 

Korea has turned to a drive strategy of exporting Korean food products from a few years ago, almost at the same time when the nation launched a project to globalize Korean food. 

Park said, “The Korean Wave, the exporting of Korean food products, and the globalization of Korean food are closely related.”

The important thing in the globalization of Korean food is to give foreigners more opportunities to taste Korean foods, since Korean cuisine has been served in large-scale eateries of big food chains.