????????Why is Taiwan food popular in the US?
Who would have thought dried noodles and mochi are among the most recognizable Taiwanese food products going viral in the United States? We talked to the food masters to find out how. Kwangyin Liu 劉光瑩 , CommonWealth English 天下雜誌英文網 editor
How Taiwanese Foods Conquer the American Market
The flavors of Taiwan, encompassing mini puffs, bubble milk tea, and dry noodles, are gaining popularity in the United States. However, with foods from other Asian countries already well established there, Taiwanese food manufacturers have some catching up to do.
It's very early in the morning on the U.S. West Coast when Terence Chen, general manager of Taiwanese trading company THL Group, finally finds some time for an interview via video call. Chen is currently busy negotiating with distributors in the United States.
In a few hours, he is scheduled to visit a Costco in the Los Angeles region to present Taiwanese foods to the hypermarket’s snack buyers.
THL is Taiwan’s leading distributor of fast-moving consumer goods. Ovaltine, Haribo Goldbears, and Energizer batteries are just a few examples of international brands that THL introduced to Taiwan. Chen is part of the second generation of the founding family.
“The market for Asian packaged food is booming in America, Taiwan is a latecomer,” says Chen.
Over the past ten years, the amount spent by American buyers on Taiwanese agricultural products, including processed foods, has nearly doubled.?In 2021, Taiwan's farm exports to the US?surpassed those to Japan. Last year, the US became the largest destination for Taiwanese agricultural exports, surpassing China.?While farm exports to the United States couldn't compensate for lost exports to China, they reached?US$29 million in 2022.
Reshuffle of Leading Export Products
In the past, Taiwan’s farmers mainly exported fresh fruit and seafood to China. In 2019, before China imposed various import bans, the five leading export items were baked goods, grouper, pineapples, tea leaves, and sugar apples.
The best-selling agricultural exports to the United States in 2022 were baked goods, moth orchids, tapioca starch - the raw material for the tapioca pearls in bubble milk tea - sweetmeats, and wheat foods. Only moth orchids belong to the Class A agriculture category, whereas the remaining export hits are processed foods.
Chen says selling foodstuffs to China has become more difficult. On the other hand, the United States is favoring Taiwan, and acceptance of Asian foods is growing. Some five years ago, he had the idea to take Taiwanese foods to a new continent.
The 32-year-old Chris Yu was born in Taiwan and immigrated to New York with his parents at age 11. He runs a food truck business with two other Asian-Americans in Midtown Manhattan, selling pork ribs with rice. Meanwhile, the trio has opened a Taiwanese restaurant in Long Island called Yumpling.
Yu observes that as Asian-Americans move to the Greater New York area, more restaurants offering modern Asian cuisine such as omakase sushi and refined Korean dishes are springing up.
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Taiwan-based Energy and Projects Lawyer at Baker McKenzie
1 年Taiwanese food and drink has really taken off in the West in recent years. It is only getting started.
“Knowledge synthesizer” Solutions Developed as a SME for Renewables Substations, Collector Systems and Transmission Line Parts and Pieces Most notably equals in a supply chain challenged world;
1 年I first went to Taiwan to work in the Fall of 1981, a year later I left with a wife (we are still Married going on 42 years). I worked in Kaohsiung and the Seafood was awesome. There was no boba then. I went back in 1995 passing thru with my wife and Daughter as we headed to China to adopt our Son (our Daughter is also a China adoptee) and that’s when I first saw boba tea. I said this would work well in the Asian USA communities. We’ve lived in Arcadia in Southern California since 2001 and you can say it’s Taiwan and China all mixed up with lots of Chinese food stuffs. I like the oyster pancakes and even stinky tofu.
Airline Management
1 年Having lived in Taiwan for over sixteen years I can attest that the food is as good as you will find anywhere.