Korean Food Fair 2015 at Kota Kasablanka.

A week ago, I was invited to the K-Food Fair 2015 which was held at Kota Kasblanka. Without much knowledge about what it actually was, I went ahead just out of curiousity.

When reaching Kota Kasablanka, the event had already started with a big ceremonial show. It was quite early as my clock just hit 11.05 WIB. Well, with the ceremonial show, the K-Food Fair 2015 started big!

It was at first started with some short presentation, and I saw quite a lot of people gathering and standing beside several rows of tables. It was said to be about 42 people (but I think it was more!), consisting of Korean and Indonesian people. What I didn’t know was that they started the event in some sort of cultural manner, and in this case, they started with the making of Kimbab, but with the length of 42 metres. Yes, 42 metres long. It was started with putting ingredients in order, and eventually rolling it and cutting it to smaller pieces. After it was all over, the ceremonial introduction came to an end and every participant was smiling, laughing and even showing positive expression. Then, the freshly made kimbab was given freely to the lucky visitors of Kota Kasablanka that day. As simple as that, it somehow actually created a simple satisfaction like a feeling of content. This activity of making kimbab involving a big mass, is certainly creative and meant to show a cooperation, or an union. After all, Korea and Indonesia have created a good relationship for about 42 years to date.

Let’s talk about some fact now.

On 17th October 2015, Korean Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) is supported by aT (Korea Agro-Fisheries and Food Trade Corporation) in holding the K-Food Fair Indonesia 2015.

This year, K-Food Fair Indonesia 2015 is consisted of two parts and is held in two different locations. The first one, on 16th September 2015, and it is held in Hotel Mulia Jakarta. The main agenda is B2B Export Consultation Meeting and K-Food Halal Seminar. The second part, is held in Kota Kasblanka and it lasts for two days, 17th-18th October 2015. People get to have the access to taste many variety of Korean food while enjoying some entertainment from Korea.

In this event, one of the agenda is about K-Food Halal Seminar. After all, the President of aT (Korea Agro-Fisheries and Food Trade Corporation), Jae Su Kim, understands that in doing a market penetration in Indonesia, there is about 87% of local citizen who is Muslim. For that, they are making an effort in providing many variety of halal food so that the local citizen will not have to worry about consuming the Korean delicacies. The importance of halal food is well-understood, thus, the K-Food Halal Seminar is held. This seminar gathers many Korean food producer, local buyers in Indonesia, as well as media, MAFRA and aT who wish to share the information about the halal certification process in Indonesia.

Talking about K-Food Fair itself, this year, the event is held globally and Malaysia is the first country to have held the event (Aug 2015). Then, it is followed by Indonesia and then, Dubai.

Part of the fun activities that visitors can do in the event are witnessing a kimbab-making class, free-tasting for many variety of Korean delicacies, and visiting some booths that serve halal certified food.

Well, not only about food, visitors get to watch and witness Korean Martial Arts performance, put on Korean traditional clothes, Hanbok, and even learn the art of paper-folding.

Well, for my personal opinion, the management could have been better and food provision in each booth could have been smoother, but all in all, the event was pretty fun. I got to see something quite distinctively different, including the making of kimbab and the percussion performance. Really looking forward to seeing the event next year!