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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Dubai World Trade Centre’s annual trio of niche food shows - The Speciality Food Festival, SEAFEX and Sweets & Snacks Middle East - ended with exceptional exhibitor and visitor attendance from across the region and around the globe.
The highly-anticipated food shows – which ran across 14,040m² of exhibition space from 9-11 November - covered everything from the finest gourmet products and ingredients, fresh and frozen fish, molluscs and crustaceans, to confectionary, biscuits, bakery goods, chocolates and crisps.
In total, more than 13,000 visitors attended the shows to source, trade and network with more than 550 exhibitors from 57 countries.
“The November food shows’ largest outings to date have proven tremendously successful,” said Trixie LohMirmand, Senior Vice-President, Exhibitions & Events Management, DWTC. “As tailored, specialist platforms, the niche food shows act as springboards for regional and international suppliers to showcase innovative new products which savvy buyers can source to establish first-in-market propositions in their respective home territories.”
Having grown 200 per cent since its 2010 debut, The Specialty Food Festival 2014 – a specialist platform for producers, suppliers, importers and exporters of gourmet, halal and organic products -welcomed its largest participation of national pavilions including Argentina, newcomers Korea, Taiwan and Belgium, as well as a stable of Europe’s traditional fine food stalwarts such as France, the UK, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
With so many international companies lining up at the show, it was an Emirati barista who stole the limelight. Lining up against more than 40 regional and internationally-experienced baristas in a series of skill-based brewing, pouring and creativity competitions, Osama Balshalat won the Latte Art Competition at the inaugural Speciality Coffee Challenge – an elite new coffee-making championship. Balshalat also finished a commendable sixth in the hotly-contested Espresso and Cappuccino Competition.

A specialist seafood platform, SEAFEX 2014 featured more than 115 exhibitors from 28 countries and boasted an array of on-site features to facilitate enhanced ROI opportunities. The event’s dedicated Hosted Buyer Programme was bigger than ever, with scores of influential purchasers coming to Dubai from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iran, Kenya, Nigeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.

“This was our first time participating at SEAFEX and our two Chilean companies promoted a range of fresh salmon and seafood products,” said Carlos Salas, Trade Commissioner, ProChile. “Dubai and the UAE provide great access to a number of dynamic regional markets and SEAFEX is the primary gate-way to reach them.”

The eighth edition of Sweets & Snacks Middle East, a dedicated trade for suppliers of sweets, confectionery and snacks, recorded a 13 per cent year-on-year visitor increase. In total, more than 240 suppliers from 37 countries exhibited at the - a 40 per cent increase on 2013.