Steena Joy – Mumbai
SIAL China, Asia’s food only tradeshow, will be held from May 6-8, 2015 in Shanghai. The show is organised by Exposium and Comexpo who have merged together to create COMEXPOSIUM. Speaking exclusively to Food & Hospitality World, Bjoern Kempe, general manager, COMEXPOSIUM, informed, “SIAL’s USP is that it a pure ‘food only’ show. No machines, no equipment unlike other food tradeshows. We will be introducing a hosted buyer programme next year onwards. We already have a business matching programme called Socialwalk in which we arranged 1000 meetings last year in SIAL China. This year we are expecting 1,400 meetings. We also have a culinary challenge called La Cuisine and SIAL Innovation which showcases innovative products from Asia.”
Commenting on the Asia market, he said, “Asia has many food processing and machinery tradeshows. But our aim is to build ‘food only’ market places. Last year in SIAL China we had around 270,000 only food exhibitors. Asia is the place to be in right now. The consumption markets of the future will be Asia and Africa. We have four SIALs in Asia as each market is different and the demands are different. All Asian countries have a growing middle class so opportunities are great in the future. Nearly 500 new hotels are coming up in India and these will drive food demand. India is also growing in terms of food exhibitions.”
According to Kempe, China is a huge ready-to-eat consumer but not the rest of Asia. “In India it is still a fresh food mentality though frozen and microwave products are becoming popular due to changing urban lifestyles and work pressures, “ he said.