EU held the ‘Irresistible Europe, Countless Combinations’ Meet and Taste Trade Seminar

[SHANGHAI, July 13, 2023] – Today, the European Union (EU) hosted its Meet and Taste Seminar for trade and media partners as part of its ‘Irresistible Europe, Countless Combinations’ campaign in China. The event served to thank trade and media for their support in the promotion of EU food and beverage products, to seek further collaboration from the Food and Beverage business network and to strengthen the presence of EU agri-food products in the Chinese market.

 

 

This trade seminar was held at the Sukhothai Shanghai Hotel and was attended by over 29 European food and beverage importers, distributors, retailers, chefs, media, as well as 14 EU delegates and representatives from the EU Member States in China. The event showcased a tasting session with specially curated dishes prepared with a wide variety of ingredients from across the European Union, including EU Geographical-Indications (GI) registered wines, spirits, beer, cured hams, cheese, butter, olive oil, table olives, vinegar, and fruit and EU organic products.

 

 

The event was graced by Mr. Wojciech Ptak, Agriculture counsellor, First Secretary, Delegation of the European Union to China. He was joined by representatives from Finland, France, Hungary, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and representatives from Czechia, Germany, Greece, and Austria shared valuable insights on the opportunities for the EU agricultural food and beverage products in China ranging from Austrian dairy products, German wines, and Czechian beers, olive oil from Greece and more.

 

 

The speakers from some of the EU Member states included Mr. Ondřej Plaček, Counsellor for Agriculture, Embassy of the Czech Republic in China, Ms. Friederike Doerfler, Counsellor Food and Agriculture, German Embassy in Beijing, Mr. Spyridon Liontos, Consul (Commercial Affairs), Office for Economic and Commercial Affairs, Consulate General of Greece in Shanghai, and Ms. Alexandra Runge, Vice Consul (Commercial Affairs), Austrian Consulate General - Commercial Section.

 

 

Mr. Ptak, Agriculture counsellor at the Delegation of the European Union to China, thanked the Chinese trade and media for their presence and support in the promotion of EU food and beverage products. He said:

“we are all seeking after your further collaboration with the EU Food and Beverage business network to strengthen the presence of European agri-food products in the Chinese market.” 

The EU has been continuously deepening the positive relationship and working closely with the Chinese businesses to have access to a wider supply of sustainable, and high-quality food and beverage products sourced from the EU Member States. The EU has also set the ambitious goal the increase EU agricultural food and beverage exports to China, particularly of meat and dairy products, wines, spirits, and beer, processed cereals and pasta, olive oil, infant food and milk formula, confectionery, pastry, jams and honey, and fruits and vegetables.

 

 

Mr. Wojciech Ptak further shared:

“Trading agri-food products is more than a business for us in the EU. It is also about values, principles, and culinary heritage. It guarantees that our principles in areas such as food safety, quality, sustainability, climate change and consumer protection are respected. Chinese consumers share similar values with a strong preference for high-quality food ingredients which I am often fascinated by how European food and ingredients can be creatively adapted through countless food combinations in China – from traditional to fusion dishes.” 

 

 

Since the launch of the EU’s campaign to promote its safe, high-quality, sustainable, authentic and diverse range of agricultural products in China in 2019, the EU has collaborated with F&B partners with the support of media to showcase EU food and beverage products through a palatable and cultural journey, using food stories and visuals implemented through a number of public relation and social media actions, advertising, as well as retail activations and consumer promotions with its recent ‘Irresistible Europe, Countless Combinations’ EU food and Chinese tea pairing promotion held in a five-star hotel early this year where the EU partnered with expert chefs and a tea masters to showcase the diversity of authentic EU agricultural products exquisitely paired with Chinese tea.

 

Mr. Wojciech Ptak shared:

“Today, EU is the largest agrifood exporter in the world and China is the third destination for the EU, representing around 7% of the European total agri-food exports. Over the last years the volume of products exchanged has been growing steadily. EU was exporting around 3 billion EUR of agri-food products to China and was also importing around 3 billion EUR from China 10 years ago. Today Europe is exporting more than 15 billion EUR to China and importing nearly 10 billion EUR of agri-food products. This illustrates how the culinary culture of Chinese consumers is evolving and how European agricultural products are highly appreciated in China. These positive trade data also confirms that European food and drink companies are able to supply safe and high-quality products to Chinese consumers and Chinese consumers appreciate the safety and the quality of European food and drinks.”

 

Mr. Ptak continued:

“EU food is a story about quality, authenticity, safety, and sustainability. Chinese consumers can enjoy European F&B products with peace of mind thanks to the comprehensive safety and quality standards at every step of growing and production regulated with stringent production standards and quality controls. The EU also has a significant role in protecting its diverse mix of cultures and centuries of traditions that give birth to a wide variety of authentic food and beverage products. A concrete example of EU-China cooperation in agricultural food trade is the EU-CN agreement on Geographical Indications (GIs) which entered into force two years ago in March 2021. It provides a high level of protection to 100 European and 100 Chinese GIs on the Chinese and European market. The scope of this agreement will expand to cover an additional 175 GI names from both sides. These high-quality products will benefit from a high level of protection against imitation to protect producers and to offer a guarantee of authenticity and origin to consumers.”

 

Mr. Wojciech Ptak further shared:

"The European food safety model is designed to protect the entire chain of production and distribution of EU agricultural food. Consumers can enjoy EU products with peace of mind, thanks to the strict EU sanitary and phytosanitary system. I want to highlight that the EU laws equally apply all over the 27 EU Member States, and the EU offers to trade partners an internal market composed of these 27 Member States without borders and we ensure that Chinese consumers enjoy the same level of properly respected standards. We continue to promote our agri-food to them through the most relevant and engaging approach such as our upcoming EU easy-to-cook recipe sharing, eCommerce activation and meal kits promotions which leverage on the growing popularity of recipe-sharing platform and easy-to-cook recipes and meal kits in China.”

 

Mr. Wojciech Ptak also shared his key remarks on the Farm to Fork strategy. He shared:

"The European Commission unveiled the European Green Deal in December of 2019. It aims to make Europe the first carbon-neutral continent. As one of the key actions under the European Green Deal policy, the ‘Farm to fork’ strategy seeks to address comprehensively the challenges of sustainable food systems. The  strategy promotes greener food production and processing, more sustainable diet and less food waste, building a food chain that works not only for the consumers and producers, but also for the climate and environment. EU has one of the largest agricultural land for organic farming and targets to increase the size of organic farming land by, at least, 25% of total farmland in 2030.”

 

The European Union will launch a consumer-eCommerce activation in July/August. It will collaborate with one of China’s largest and most popular recipe-sharing media platform - Xia Chu Fang (下厨房), to promote a series of menus by KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) to inspire users on Xia Chu Fang to discover and use EU ingredients to prepare easy-to-cook recipes. The main EU ingredients used by the KOLs in the dishes will be available for purchase on Tmall, which is one of China's largest eCommerce platforms. At the same time, users can join the contest on the Xia Chu Fang App from August to share and feature the dishes they prepared with the EU food ingredients. The user-generated content will feature the wide variety of EU ingredients and dishes which users may have learnt from the KOLs or created on their own. Two out of the four KOLs recipes were showcased and tased at the Trade event on 13 July.

 

 

 

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