Glen Ward, the co-owner of Spokane Valley-based snack bar maker BumbleBar Inc., was one of nine owners of small Eastern Washington businesses that participated in a recent nine-day business trip to Japan and South Korea.

The trip was organized in part by the Spokane-based Eastern Washington Small Business Development Center and Grant County Economic Development Council.

Washington State University hosts the local SBDC, which is also a program of the U.S. Small Business Administration, in Washington, D.C.

Vern Jenkins, the international trade specialist for the SBDC here, says it was the second-straight year a group of Eastern Washington entrepreneurs has made such a trip.

“Our goal is to do this every year,” Jenkins says. “We want to get Eastern Washington business owners in front of foreign buyers to create new markets for their products.”

In a press release, Ward, who co-owns BumbleBar with his wife, Liz Ward, says, “We think there is a big opportunity for what we do in the high-end international space.”

BumbleBar has gluten-free, non-GMO, organic, and kosher certifications. BumbleBar is able to manufacture 8 million to 10 million products per year, which includes its own BumbleBar product and orders from other food makers.

The company uses two main ingredients for its bars—sesame seed and flaxseed—and it promotes the bars as organic and ethically sourced, in addition to being gluten free.

In Japan, Ward met with Japan’s largest outdoor recreation business to discuss creating an energy bar with that company’s name.

Business owners participated in more than 40 business meetings in Seoul and more than 20 in Tokyo.

To accommodate its rapid growth, BumbleBar moved last year into 36,000 square feet of space in the Flora Industrial Center, at 3014 N. Flora Road. It previously was located in 12,000-square feet of space in the nearby Spokane Business & Industrial Park, at 3808 N. Sullivan.