Image Credit: Ahmed Ramzan/ Gulf News
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Visitors try chocolates at Altinmarka
stand, on the day one of Gulfood Manufacturing 2017 at Dubai World Trade Centre
and Exhibition halls, Dubai.
Dubai
The world’s largest annual food and
hospitality exhibition, according to its organisers, returns to Dubai on
Sunday, with exhibitors from across the globe assembling to sell their seeds,
cereals, and sourdough to large corporate customers, such as hotel chains and
airlines.
Running from February 18 until February 22,
the event is taking place at the Dubai World Trade Centre, with the 23rd
edition of the show featuring over 5,000 local, regional and international
exhibitors hawking their wares, and 97,000 attendees bearing witness to the
food industry’s latest trends and technology.
Specialised segments of the show will focus
on the Halal food industry, estimated in recent research to grow to a $10
trillion market by 2030, a chef competition, and dedicated areas for beverages,
health and wellness foods, and fats and oils.
Gulfood launched in 1987 in Dubai, and has
since established itself as a key player in the international food market. The
competition will be fierce as participants look to sign large bi-lateral trade
agreements and take advantage of a tourism sector set to grow to 1.5 billion
people by 2020.
Designed to highlight eight of the biggest
food commodity trading sectors, the event will also host specialised halls for:
Dairy, free-from foods, pulses, grains and cereals, meat and poultry, power
brands and world food.
The Emirates Culinary Guild International
Salon Culinaire, a cooking contest, is a staple of the event.
The annual competition, one of the world’s
biggest, will showcase more than 1,000 chefs, judged by an expert panel
mandated by the World Association of Chefs Societies (WACS).
Trade delegations will visit from countries
such as Pakistan, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia.
Possessing a large Muslim population, the
travelling delegation of 23 Philippine companies say they hope to take
advantage of the growing Halal industry, connecting with large groups such as
hotels and catering companies that can provide reach and network.
“We have carefully primed a roster of 23
top exporting companies in a grand showcase of the Philippines’ best product
selections in the world’s biggest trade platform for food and ingredients,” the
Manila Times quoted Philippine trade department official Lourdes Mediran as
saying.
In its participation at Gulfood, the
Department of Trade and Industry ? Centre for International Trade Expositions
and Missions (DTI-CITEM) says that it is looking to generate at least $110
million in export deals as the Philippines seeks to grow its 5 per cent share
of the global halal market.
Similarly, Pakistan says that it will send
13 businesses in the agriculture industry, showing off halal meats, off-season
vegetables, and kinnow mandarins, networking with international buyers and
sellers during their time in Dubai.
The food and beverage sector in the Gulf is
expected to continue to grow by 7.1 per cent annually, reaching $196 billion by
2021, according to MENA Research Partners, a regional research company.
The company says that the market is
currently valued at around $130 billion.
As a percentage, Saudi Arabia alone
accounts for more than half of that, followed by the UAE with 31 per cent.
Link-> http://gulfnews.com/business/sectors/tourism/international-food-buyers-and-sellers-meet-in-dubai-with-focus-on-halal-1.2174991