JonnyM: Polish chocolate is good to, plus honey (but again, there are strict laws in a lot of countries about importing honey).
JonnyM: I don't know much about your area, but dried mushrooms would be good to import due to being long-lasting and lightweight. Just be careful about following the laws of your country concerning food importing. Polish chocolate is good to, plus honey (but again, there are strict laws in a lot of countries about importing honey).
What chocolate? Two days ago I was given a little gift ("I shopped specifically for you for some good Polish chocolate, since I thought you might have missed it"). Now, that was some bad Wedel's product. Made of some nuts and raisins stuff, embedded in some ridiculously overly sweet mumbo jumbo. Who owns Wedel now? Cadbury? The worst stuff I ever tasted - and I had to smile all the time and be thankful. To be truthful, if I were doing the shopping myself I would have never touched anything looking so bad. I hope you can still buy a black bitter chocolate from Wedel and other places, and also the traditional Wedel's cake. But to be frank, I have not been into any Polish shop here for the last four months, so what do I know. Being too busy ...
Honey used to be quite a good and popular item in Toronto's shops. I have not seen any honey from Poland for the last two years or so. This has something to do with that terrible viral bee disease, which kills many, many bee swarms all over the world. Now they sell here mostly the stuff from Australia (being the primary suspect to actually proliferate this disease) and from New Zealand. The last good buckwheat's honey (strong, for people with an acquired taste) I bought here was from Ukraine, one year ago. Gone ...
On the positive side - mushrooms might be a good business for you. Over here, the Porcinis (Boletus Edulis), the Italian competition to Polish "Borowik", are sold in little packets - and they cost a lot. Polish shops still sell them, as they used to do it for years and years.
I have seen all sorts of marinated mushrooms coming from all over Poland - ranging from cheap low quality stuff, as well as the expensive chanterelles (kurki). One major reason that this is still a good concept is this: (and I do not know about the American side of the Great Lakes) On the Canadian side there used to be a very destructive clear-cut lumber-jack industry. Evidently, what we see around here, tree-wise, is no older than 80 years old or so. The point is, when the ecosystem is destroyed the mushrooms suffer as well, and they need a LOT OF TIME to come back again.
As an anecdotical evidence I should add that in my former 7-acre property in Northern Muskoka all I could find on my wooded property was a little patch of "kurki" - 1x3 meters. That's it! Ok, some occasional porcini, but nothing to call home about.
In conclusion, the mushroom business in USA seems a good idea to me for few reasons: non-availability, modern cuisine (French cooks on both sides of the Great Lakes).
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