Flavors of Chile Food Seminar to Unveil New Products

05/12/06 Chile will showcase some of its most distinctive flavors at a seminar for the food trade and media at New York's Culinary Loft on Thursday, November 30 from 5-7 PM.    

Trade Commissioner Juan A. Somavia of ProChile New York, the Trade Commission of Chile, Chile's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said, "Chile is an increasingly important source of specialty foods. We are building on our long tradition of providing well-known seafood and produce, and are excited about presenting some of our most distinctive flavors to the US market."

Chile, located on the west coast of South America's tapering cone, is 2700 miles long and just 110 miles wide. Its length and extraordinarily diverse geography provides an unsurpassed climatic range and soils that are suitable for a very wide range of food production. As a southern-hemisphere country, Chile's growing seasons run counter to the growing seasons of countries in the northern hemisphere. Chile supplies high quality produce to the United States throughout the winter.

Chile is a leading US supplier of foods that are staples in the American diet, including grapes, blueberries, apples, salmon and a variety of seafood. It is increasingly exporting added value products such as juices, cheese, preserves, tea, smoked salmon, extra-virgin olive oil and organic products. Fueled by the rise of the Chilean culinary scene that pairs its already well known Chilean wines to food with unique Chilean flavors, Chile is introducing the following new flavors to the US market: Chilean carica, cherimoya, lucuma, avocado oil and merken, among others. Several of the products featured at the seminar are new to the United States and seeking importers.

Chile, All Ways Surprising Campaign Supports Key Sectors

Benefiting from a long tradition of economic stability and the recent passage of the free trade agreement with the United States, Chile is an increasingly important partner to US businesses across major sectors. ProChile is promoting several of these key industries to the US through a series of events in New York through the fall of 2006 as part of the Chile, All Ways Surprising new country image branding campaign. Several Chilean products were featured as a special sampling promotion at all five Gourmet Garage stores in New York. In addition, an exclusive party was hosted to celebrate the US launch of "Film Chile: The Chilean Film & Photo Commission" at Ultra on November 16. In addition, ProChile arranged an analyst and media tour to communicate its technology, services, trade and infrastructure advantages to analysts and foreign investors. The seminar at Culinary Loft will be followed up with an educational trip to Chile for the media during February 2007.