Bringing U.S. Cuisine and Culture to Colombia
Plan Chef Host Alejandro Canedo and special guest chef FAS Administrator Phil Karsting preparing a meal for the California Dreaming episode, hosted by the California Pear Advisory Board.
SaborUSA, using the Spanish word for flavor or taste, is a non-traditional marketing campaign in Colombia that promotes U.S. food and beverages and American culture. Since it targets young consumers, it features an interactive website, social media, a smartphone application, innovative marketing events and Plan Chef, a cooking show on Colombian television station Canal 13.
The campaign uses funds from FAS’s Global Broad-Based Initiative (GBI), a program that helps FAS industry partners, called Cooperators, to address challenges and opportunities that are common across specific markets or industry sectors. There are 15 commodity groups participating in the Colombian effort. The Cooperators represent a wide range of agricultural commodities, including pears, meat, peanuts, wine, apples, poultry and eggs, distilleries, popcorn, grains, table grapes, dry beans, soybeans, rice and sunflowers.
In September, the California Pear Advisory Board, the lead Cooperator, hosted Chef Alejandro Canedo, from the Plan Chef cooking show, to film a “California Dreaming” episode in Walnut Grove, Calif. Canedo was joined by FAS Administrator Phil Karsting as the special guest chef. Karsting graduated from the International Culinary Center in New York and worked as a professional chef in California earlier in his career.
Canedo and Karsting prepared a delicious meal featuring roasted chicken, sweet potatoes and sautéed mushrooms with a pear sauce, combined with a local California white wine.
The show will air on Canal 13 on Saturday, November 14, at 9 p.m. (Colombia time). The episode can be seen live streamed on the SaborUSA website (www.saborusa.co) and the Canal 13 website (www.canaltr3ce.co). Each Plan Chef episode is uploaded to the Canal 13 YouTube channel after airing.
SaborUSA serves as a central point of coordination for marketing efforts in Colombia, strengthening the historical partnership between FAS and cooperators while creating new partnerships with the State Department and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Bogota.
Colombia is the 10th largest consumer of U.S. agriculture products in the world. U.S. agricultural exports to Colombia were valued at $2.4 billion in 2014. Colombia’s growing economy, expanding middle class and love of all things American, provides greater commercial opportunities for U.S. agriculture.