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Businesses finding foreign markets
Virginia helps area businesses market their products abroad
BY CATHY JETT
Date published: 1/20/2008
BY CATHY JETT
Specialty dark chocolates are an easier sell in England than in the United States, where Americans like to satisfy their sweet tooth with milk chocolate.
So Mary Schellhammer, whose Spice Rack Chocolates are handmade in a 1,500-square-foot facility at Four Mile Fork, figured she could expand by exporting her lemon-basil, mango-black pepper and 12 other gourmet chocolate varieties.
"Here in the United States, it's a struggle to market dark chocolate," she said. "There's no milk and no sugar in our products. In the U.K., dark chocolate flavored with herbs and spices is more common."
For help finding distributors abroad, she turned last October to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership's Division of International Trade.
She competed for, and won, one of 20 spots awarded annually in its Accessing International Markets, or AIM, program. It jump-starts companies' export efforts by helping them target markets, develop marketing plans and do such things as update their Web sites and buy export software.
Participants also have access to $5,000 in reimbursements to offset approved export-related expenses. And they receive pro bono counseling from six private-sector export specialists: an attorney, a Web designer, a banker, a translator, a freight forwarder and a U.S. export compliance specialist.
"We're still amazed at how much work the state does to help you export," said Schellhammer, who will be taking part in a subsidized AIM trade mission to England from April 28 to May 2.
Exports are big business in Virginia--and they're getting bigger. The state, which currently ranks 23rd nationally in total exports, had exported $15.4 billion worth of goods by the end of last November, the latest figures available.
That's a 19.43 percent increase over the same time period in 2006, said Terri Noll, client services manager for the VEDP's international trade division.
"We've seen a steady increase for, gosh, a good number of years, at least since 2002," she said.
Providing support to companies that want to export their goods and services is a win-win for both them and the state, Noll pointed out. Not only does it create additional jobs, but it boosts profits--and tax revenues.
One company that she worked with, for example, went from $35,000 in sales abroad to winning a $3 million contract.
Date published: 1/20/2008
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