Grant County businesses lay groundwork for Korea trade

MOSES LAKE — Central Washington businesses took a major step forward to entering international markets, making great progress with an eight-day trade mission to Gunpo, South Korea.

Through a series of one-on-one meetings for this business-to-business trade, five Grant County business representatives set in motion negotiations for future business products ranging from flour to exercise equipment.

“These companies have already been working on export opportunities in South Korea with recent market research provided by the Washington SBDC intern research team,” said Vern Jenkins, an international trade specialist with the Washington Small Business Development Center. “So we know that the potential for export sales is there. This mission is an important step in developing the face-to-face relationships that are so important in international trade.”

Five business Grant County-based business owners that were part of the delegation, but they represented several other companies including Fresh Nature Foods, Cascade Mills Flour, Trinidad Lavender, Whiskey Gap Distillery, Bartelson Transport, Bowman Orchards and reACT Trainer.

“There’s definitely a very strong demand for U.S. or Washington state organic food products. It was very evident there was a clear demand. There are some legitimate leads that came out of this trip,” Cascade Organic Flour consultant Patrick Boss said. “I would say there are some leads that will come to fruition in the next six months to a year. There was clearly an overall interest by a number of buyers over in that marketplace for organic products.”

Allan Peterson, an Business Development Center advisor located in Moses Lake, said the overall success of the trip is exciting.

“The great thing about exporting, especially in rural areas, is that businesses are finding new markets or new customers outside the U.S., but the jobs are staying here,” he commented.

Peterson also represented Whiskey Gap Distillery in Ritzville and entered into discussions on the South Korean interest future markets in craft beers and distilleries.

“They are just now getting into the craft beers in Korea,” Boss said. “That’s one of the things I noticed in the restaurants we were at was they had a limited amount of single malts. They had Canadian Mist, but not any specialty products. The next evolution is in distilling.”

The business-to-business trade mission was organized as a follow-up to a visit a Gunpo delegation made to Grant County in September 2015. Grant County and Gunpo have had a Sister City relationship since 2003, but when Peterson learned a group of business and civic leaders would be visiting in fall 2015, he offered to set up a small trade expo of Eastern Washington products. The trade expo was so successful that those involved wanted to keep the momentum going.

“Developing a strong export plan can really transform a business, and it’s exciting for the SBDC to be able to walk this journey with our clients,” Peterson said.

The business owners received STEP grants from the Washington Department of Commerce to help defray the cost of airfare, but are otherwise paying their own expenses.

Follow-up meetings are in progress and several Grant County business operations are expected to benefit from the groundwork laid during the business-to-business trade mission.