Gulfood promises plenty of drama with the Salon Culinaire, the inaugural Gulfood Awards and the first conference. Gulfood promises plenty of drama with the Salon Culinaire, the inaugural Gulfood Awards and the first conference.


Trend prediction: PRICE

Tolga Sezer Lacin
Complex executive assistant manager food & beverage, Mina Seyahi Complex, Dubai

“I believe there will be a rationalisation of pricing in 2010. Restaurants will serve smaller portions at the same quality and reduce prices. Instead of working with a 50% profit and an empty restaurant, restaurants will work with a 30% profit and a full restaurant.”

Trend prediction: QUALITY

Kieron Hunt
Director of F&B, IHG Dubai Festival City

“The trend in F&B for 2010 for the Middle East will be to continue delivering high quality but with reduced prices and costs. As a result, sourcing great produce that is local to the region will also be a key trend. There will also be more effort made to retain business through loyalty programmes and benefit cards compared to previous years.”

Restaurant & Café Middle East

Restaurant and Café Middle East is an exhibition showcasing products and services dedicated to the business of restaurants and cafés. Participating exhibitors range from interior and design specialists to hardware and technology providers. The idea behind this show-within-a-show is to provide restaurant and café buyers with a one-stop shop for hunting down trends, products and innovations.

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Ingredients Middle East

Ingredients Middle East is the only event in the region that covers every aspect of this complex sector. Leading companies from around the world, who cultivate, extract, process or supply raw materials and ingredients used in the manufacturing of finished food, beverage and health food products, will be on hand, to discuss and share their knowledge.

The inaugural Gulfood Conference

The inaugural Gulfood Conference will take place during the four-day exhibition and bring together international experts to discuss future trends, critical issues and operational best practice in the food and beverage industry under the title: ‘Global trends in food, beverage and processing’.

The structure combines keynote speakers, seminars and networking sessions giving delegates the chance to debate and exchange views.

Key topics include global market trends in food; practical pricing strategies, how firms can insulate themselves from future volatility; product certification; training and innovation in the bakery sector; innovations for small businesses and market trends in the beverage and dairy industries, while specialist sessions span topics such as IT; food and drink processing; ingredients; packaging trends; food and drink consumer trends; business management; import/export; Halal; and marketing.

The speaker line-up:

  • Elizabeth Martins, head of MENA, Business Monitor International
  • Jan N Bergman, president EMEA, The NutraSweet Company
  • Virginie De Beco, regional marketing director, Del Monte
  • Richard Hall, chairman, Zenith
  • Sudhakar Tomar, chair person, CICILS-IPTIC (World Pulses Organisation)
  • Shonil Chande, food and drink analyst, Business Monitor International
  • Frans Kampers, research co-ordinator Bionanotechnologies, Dubai Municipality/Wageningen UR

For more information visit www.gulfood.com/conference