In July 2008, Anton-Argires, Inc., located in Alsip, IL in Congressional District 1, participated in Food Export-Midwest’s Midwest Buyers Mission. The Mission included one-on-one meetings between U.S. suppliers and foreign buyers to help build business relationships and, ultimately, generate new export sales. During the Mission, the company met with international buyers from seven countries and established one new distributorship to the Caribbean. As a result of the meetings, Anton-Argires generated new actual export sales to Vietnam totaling $16,000. This marked the company’s first sale to Southeast Asia.

Anton-Argires was established in 1949 and is a second generation family owned enterprise which sells nuts, dried fruit, and gourmet popcorn.

Food Export-Midwest and Food Export-Northeast are private, non-profit associations of Midwestern and Northeastern state agricultural promotion agencies that use federal, state, and industry resources to promote the export of Midwestern and Northeastern food and agricultural products. Food Export-Midwest and Food Export-Northeast administer many services through Market Access Program (MAP) funding from the USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service.