020702 U.S. Food Expo in Cuba Set for Sept.July 1, 2002American food companies will be able to showcase their products in communist Cuba during a Sept. 26-30 trade fair as the island makes new deals to buy apples, dried lentils and peas -- even brand-name packaged food -- directly from the United States. PWN Exhibicon International LLC of Westport, Conn., announced the dates Monday, about a month after receiving Cuba's final approval to organize the U.S. Food & Agribusiness Exhibition in Havana. The U.S. Treasury Department earlier granted PWN Exhibicon a license to organize the trade fair — a necessary legal step because Cuba remains under a four-decade-old U.S. trade embargo. Exhibitors will be covered under PWN Exhibicon's license and will not have to obtain individual ones to showcase their products, the New York-based U.S. Cuba Trade and Economic Council said. About 150 U.S. companies, as well as agricultural agencies and organizations, have expressed interest in the trade fair, PWN Exhibicon has said. They include several firms that have recently sold food to Cuba, such as Archer Daniels Midland Co. of Illinois. Poultry producers Gold Kist Inc., of Georgia; Perdue Farms Inc., of Maryland; Radio Foods of Massachusetts; and rice producer Riceland Foods, of Arkansas, are among companies planning to exhibit, according to PWN Exhibicon. Exhibicon International's Peter Nathan helped organize the first U.S. trade exhibitions in the former Soviet Union in the early 1970s and in China in 1980. He organized a U.S. government-licensed exposition of American health care products in Cuba in 2000. Communist officials first agreed to buy American food last November after Hurricane Michelle battered Cuba. They previously had refused to buy U.S. agricultural goods despite a 2000 U.S. law allowing them to do so. Since then, Cuba has bought, contracted or confirmed its intention to buy about 650,000 tons of U.S. agricultural products worth about $102 million, according to the U.S. Cuba Trade and Economic Council. The council projects Cuba will buy more than $165 million worth of American food by year's end and more than $250 million by the end of 2003. Indianapolis-based Marsh Supermarkets Inc. recently became the first U.S. company to contract with Cuba to sell packaged products with brand names, according to the business council. In Washington state on Monday, boxes of Red Delicious apples were being loaded for shipment to Cuba — the first Washington apples in 40 years to be shipped to the island nation. Agricultural leaders hope the apples will be followed by cherries, pears and other crops. Food purchased from other American states in recent months includes corn, rice, wheat, soy, poultry, vegetable oil, eggs and pork lard.
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