Greek food casts its global net
«Kerasma,» the first global conference on Greek gastronomy and the food and wine industry, organized by the Hellenic Foreign Trade Board (OPE), has spurred talks between Greek food enterprises and distribution networks abroad. Already some very satisfactory deals have been sealed with distributors from the US, Germany, Russia and Korea, while negotiations for the British market have advanced. Attending the conference were representatives of chains and the media from eight target markets for the development and penetration of Greek products in the US, Canada, Australia, the UK, Germany, Russia, Korea and Japan. «The conference has offered an opportunity to representatives of retail chains to meet the country’s manufacturers and to Greek companies to gain firsthand knowledge of what chains require to place their products,» stated Panayiotis Drossos, CEO of OPE. He added that by the year’s end 20 Greek products will find their way to a US supermarket chain that has none today. Another 20 products will be presented by German group Metro for one month in Germany and if the public embraces them they will become regular offerings. The deal with Wal-Mart in Korea is similar. Discussions with three more chains in the UK and the US are underway, too. Winemaker Boutaris also signed a deal for distribution in Russia.
