The Lithuanian Products Center, with a sign brightly lit in the nation’s yellow, green and red colors at the Taipei World Trade Center, showcases everything from bacon-flavored schnapps to breakfast cereals, all with the aim of attracting Taiwanese importers.
The center opened in April with the mission of connecting Taiwanese and Lithuanian businesspeople.
Prior to last year, Taiwanese perhaps only knew Lithuania as a distant basketball powerhouse, but that all changed with its donation of more than 250,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines and the opening of a Taiwan representative office in Vilnius.
Photo: CNA
“The recognition and popularity of Lithuanian products in Taiwan has improved tremendously,” Taiwan External Trade Development Council market development department executive director Felix Chiu (邱揮立) said.
In January, a 1,200-bottle shipment of Lithuanian-bottled rum sold out at Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp stores in less than an hour. It was a symbol of the local enthusiasm for goods from the eastern Europe country after Beijing sanctioned Vilnius for allowing Taipei to open its office in Lithuania with “Taiwanese” in the name.
“We helped with promotion, and from then on more and more Lithuanian food items started to come in,” he said.
A Lithuanian pavilion at the Food Taipei international food show in December last year and the Lithuanian Lifestyle Festival last month helped expose Taiwanese to more products from the Baltic country.
The Lithuanian Products Center has helped more than 15 Lithuanian products connect with importers and gain footholds in the local market, Chiu said.
Imports of several Lithuanian products rose dramatically in the first 10 months of the year, compared with the same period last year, Bureau of Foreign Trade data showed.
Cheese and curd imports rose 273 percent to US$1 million, imports of chocolate and foods containing cocoa increased 132 percent to US$522,214, beer imports expanded 508 percent to US$410,767, and rum imports soared 529 percent to US$56,355.
One newer addition is a line of Lithuanian breakfast cereals manufactured by Cerera Foods, which are being sold at select Breeze Super and Shin Kong Mitsukoshi supermarkets as well as certain Carrefour stores, importer Macroscopic said.
The company said that products such as breakfast cereals are more likely to sell well with Taiwanese, because they can be quickly and easily prepared.
Kuo (郭), a shopper in her 20s at a Breeze Super store in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義), said she was a fan of the cereal.
She said that Lithuanian products were becoming better known to Taiwanese because of improving ties between the countries and more aggressive promotion.
Another brand that has seen a sizeable spike in popularity is Lithuanian confectioner Ruta, which was founded in 1913.
The distributor, Ivan Huang (黃躍) and his wife, Chen Yi-ting (陳怡婷), said they had to explain where Lithuania was to buyers when they first started selling the chocolates in 2018.
Huang said that before the Lithuania Products Center was set up, there were only a handful of food items from the country being sold in Taiwan.
Since June last year, when Lithuania gained local recognition for donating COVID-19 vaccines to Taiwan, the range of items from the country has widened and sales of Lithuanian chocolates have taken off, Huang said.
Although he did not disclose sales figures, he said that sales had risen at least 50 percent this year from the last seven months of last year.
He also said that government efforts such as the Lithuania Products Center have helped promote Lithuanian products.
Huang said that several customers told him they learned about the chocolates after visiting the center.
The establishment of a Lithuanian trade office in Taiwan is expected to bring even greater cooperation between the two sides, Lithuanian Minister of the Economy and Innovation Ausrine Armonaite wrote on Twitter.
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