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A Look Back Reveals a Bright Future

7-12-2023

Big Picture Report: July 2023
Bernadette Wiltz-Lang, SUSTA

It’s July and that means we’re halfway through 2023, but I want to take this opportunity for a quick look forward to next year and a look back at the comeback made in 2022.

First off, starting August 1, you’ll be able to reconfirm your MySUSTA account details for 2024 and be ready for the new program year. That presents a great opportunity to keep the momentum going! So far in 2023, here’s a sample of what we’re hearing from SUSTA companies:

  • The trade show was very successful. We were able to meet with past customers and new customers. We will participate again next year.
  • We are extremely positive on the outlook of this market ….
  • This event significantly exceeded our expectations.

And there is more to come through the end of the year – just this week, we are opening registration for a product showcase in Japan and an in-store promotion in Spain – both taking place this fall; check out the schedule of events on SUSTA’s website. The line up of events includes opportunities for retail products and food service products; value-added products, distilled spirits, and even certain commodity products. There are inbound missions, outbound missions, and trade shows. Finally, there is a mix of familiar, tried and true, proven activities sprinkled with some brand-new trade shows.

The busy schedule for 2023 is building on the momentum of 2022, during which we were able to move past the long tail of disruptions from COVID in 2020 and 2021.

Indeed, 2022 was a busy year. SUSTA conducted 54 Global Events activities, covering every region of the world: Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, Canada, Mexico and Australia. Between the Global Events program activities and the 50% CostShare program, companies made exports sales in 60 countries, including 81 first time export sales to a new market!

Those companies reported introducing more than 2,000 new products to export buyers and also reported establishing 387 new distributorships. All in all, impressive results.

In total, across all of SUSTA’s activities for the year – from education to export marketing activities – there were 1,324 participations! Those companies came from each of SUSTA’s 15 member states.

I want to thank all the companies who participated in SUSTA’s activities and programs in 2022, especially for providing feedback through our follow-up surveys. This information helps us compile and benchmark these year-end results. Please keep in mind that these surveys are critical to continuous improvement in SUSTA’s programs.

Our goal is simple: to support your export success. That’s our mission. We will keep working on your behalf until comments like this one we received from one company, “This is our first time doing trade mission meetings through SUSTA. We hope this is successful for us” become comments like this from another company, “Being part of SUSTA has made my exporting business more profitable. This is one of the best decisions I have ever made.”