The 21st edition of Gulfood took place from February 21 to 25, attracting more than 90,000 visitors from 160 countries, and occupying in excess of 1.29 million sq ft of exhibition space.
The five-day event included the third edition of Halal World Food — the world's biggest annual halal food sourcing trade event — and an exhibitor line-up of finished food producers, bulk commodity wholesalers, distributors and exporters, as well as the show’s largest-ever collection of hospitality equipment suppliers. Continuing its evolved status as a weathervane to hospitality and food sector trends, Gulfood 2016 featured a host of new exhibitors, expanded participation by returnees and a wealth of new-to-market products. As the exclusive official publication for the event, Caterer Middle East reported daily from Dubai World Trade Centre and over the next nine pages, see the news and photos we captured at the event.
Regional debuts
Unsurprisingly given its size and reach, many companies used Gulfood to make their regional debut in the Middle East. One of these companies was Juice In Time, a company from São Paulo, Brazil, that showcased its system whereby capsules containing frozen fruit pulp are set up over a cup and the company's patented machine, attached to the cup, releases a thin water stream for one minute, melting the pulp, and creating a chilled beverage ready to drink.
After a live demo of the system for invited members of the media, the company’s owner and founder of the system, Marcos Roberto Pinotti: said: "The business we are dealing with is very similar to Nespresso, so the idea is to have the machine at the lowest possible cost and we make money selling capsules. We can make the juice without touching the fruit, and this is why we have incomparable food safety. We are working with frozen fruit that is 100% natural - there are no preservatives.”
For now, ten kinds of juices are offered in the region, as Pinotti said the company wants to gauge what flavours local consumers prefers, and ultimately he wants to operate small factories near to the company's big customers in the region. Confident of Juice in Time's health properties, he told Caterer Middle East that, according to his calculations "if you swap the market leader juice in Brazil for Juice In Time [juice-consumers] would save 33 million calories".
Juice In Time was one of 80 Brazilian companies that used Gulfood to build on the country’s 2015 exports to the GCC that reached almost US $4bn, with the UAE absorbing nearly a third. Brazilian pavilion participants promoted a vast range of products from poultry to fruit, dairy, confectionery and pastry, while the pavilion had two restaurants – a steakhouse BBQ and general food outlet where a Brazilian chef prepared typical food and shawarma with Brazilian chicken.
Another company using Gulfood as a launch pad was Zandbergen World’s Finest Meat, which made its debut in the Middle East during with its brand The Frozen Butcher. The brand has been sold in retailers in Europe for about 18 months and Adriaan Figee, part of the Zandbergen management team, told Caterer Middle East that new burgers, steaks and carpaccio have been added since its launch.
He also said The Frozen Butcher contains high quality meat products without any preservatives, colouring agents or other additives. He said: “We want to give butcher’s quality to the public, so we focus on premium meat quality — our veal burger for example contains 99.5% veal meat and 0.5% salt, no other additives. We apply this philosophy to all our products. We travel the globe in search of the best meat. By freezing it we preserve the premium quality, don’t need preservatives and make these delicious products available for everyone. It is a high quality brand and on the inlay in our packaging we include background information, such as the origin of the product, the breed and preparation.”
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