Review: World Bakers team visits Gulfood Manufacturing’s first edition

First edition of Gulfood Manufacturing (November 9-11) has just ended in Dubai after three days of business opportunities, presentations and demonstrations. 

World Bakers team visited the trade show conceived to capitalize on unprecedented market demand for the Middle East, Africa and South East Asia’s (MEASA) region’s food and beverage processing industry.

With more than 1,000 international suppliers participating in the specialist B2B platform, the inaugural Gulfood Manufacturing show gathered more than 10,000 regional and global trade visitors and 1,500 delegates.

The inaugural Gulfood Manufacturing was opened November 9, by Sheikha Lubna Bint Khalid Al Qasimi, Minister of International Cooperation and Development, in the presence of Helal Saeed Almarri, director general, Department of tourism & Commerce Marketing (DTCM) and CEO, Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), Abdul Rahman Saif Al Ghurair, Chairman, Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and various other leading UAE business chiefs and VVIPs.

With 24 official country pavilions spread across the show-floor, Gulfood Manufacturing was organized as the global food industry’s largest-ever Hosted Buyer Programme, a initiative designed to highlight the region’s rapidly expanding F&B manufacturing and production infrastructure to influential buyers from countries including Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Egypt, Turkey, South Africa, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Iran and Nigeria amongst others.

Gulfood Manufacturing has also host the two-day Food & Beverage Industrial Investment Summit – a strategic investment event bringing together overseas investors and multinational corporations to explore economic, market and manufacturing opportunities across MEASA, the show’s catchment footprint. The Summit wanted to give attendees and delegates a better understanding of the financial, legal, logistics, cold chain and technology benefits of locating or expanding existing operations in the region. A specialist two-day Bakery Innovations Summit presented by Knowledge Partner, Bakery Initiatives of the Netherlands, will also run during the show, as will the Food Factory of the Future – a unique showcase of cutting-edge food manufacturing technologies presented by Germany’s United Food Technology (UFT).

“The opening day of Gulfood Manufacturing has underlined the intense international demand for a dedicated sector-specific platform to serve the region’s developing food processing and manufacturing sphere,” said Trixie LohMirmand, Senior Vice-President, Events & Exhibitions Department, DWTC.

UPDATE:  The specialist two-day Bakery Innovations Summit presented by Bakery Initiatives (the Netherlands) was held during the first two days of the show and included a special focus on the frozen industry and its influence in the bakery market, as frozen bakery accounts for 8 per cent of the total frozen food market.

One of the highlights of the summit provided insights into how the frozen process is changing the bakery market. “The question is not how it is changing the market, but how it will keep on changing it,” summarized Oliver Sergent, Mecatherm’s CEO, as the process can provide “fantastic business opportunities”.

The presentations also offered insights into vacuum cooling as a golden opportunity for food safety and quality improvement in baked goods, exploring the functional principles and advantages of vacuum cooling. Patrick Duss, senior consultant of Avenidas (Switzerland) detailed on the batch and continuous vacuum cooling systems.

Clean label and the worldwide food trends were also addressed during the summit, as well as opportunities in industrial and artisan bakers’ partnerships and updates on the world grain market.

Having made a comeback in the industry over the past 20 years, the future of sourdough was addressed, and it comes from the past, according to Karl De Smedt, technologist with Puratos.