SPC president attends French President Emmanuel Macron's dinner in Paris

SPC President Hur Jin-soo, left, shakes hands with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Monday (local time). Chief executives from global food companies were invited to the dinner event Hur attended. Courtesy of SPC By Ko Dong-hwan SPC Group, a Korean food and beverage company, said Wednesday its president, Hur Jin-soo, attended a dinner event hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, along with chief executives of global food enterprises.

Hur visited the Elysee Palace in Paris on Monday for the event, which was held to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Salon International de l'Alimentation, a biennial international food trade exposition in France. This year's edition runs from Oct. 19 to Oct.



23. About 40 guests joined the banquet, including representatives from Dutch food product distributor SPAR, Japanese trader Marubeni, French dairy producers Savencia and Eurial and agricultural company Limagrain. Macron invited the SPC executive in recognition of the company's bakery subsidiary, Paris Baguette, and its active trades with France for ingredients and expansion of the company's global market, SPC said.

Paris Baguette imports French ingredients and dairy products, such as wheat, butter and cheese. The company operates six stores in France and has a network of approximately 4,000 shops across 13 countries, including the United States, China, Britain, Singapore and Malaysia. An SPC official said that Macron considered Paris Baguette's role in enhancing economic trade and cultural exchanges between Korea and France before inviting Hur.

The official added that the French president recognized Hur for making bold investments in France and for promoting the country's culinary culture and high-quality food products through SPC's global supply chain. "The banquet was joined by many globally known CEOs of food ingredient companies from France and the rest of the world. It was a great opportunity for us to build a global network," the official said.

"This helped us secure further supply chains for quality ingredients from those global companies and develop new joint partnerships for our global market.".