Cibus looks to Expo and beyond after hit food fair

Italian products promoted overseas in World's Fair run-up

(ANSA) - Parma, June 6 - Cibus, Italy's international food trade fair, is ready to wow the world in a series of ongoing and upcoming international events leading up to Milan Expo 2015, organizers announced Friday.

In early May, Cibus held a successful four-day event showcasing mainstream and niche Italian food products and companies to an astounding 67,000 people, including 10,000 foreign buyers form 115 countries. Now, Cibus is building on that success over the next year in a dynamic itinerary of international and local trade fairs, offering a slice of culinary Italy leading up to the World's Fair. In mid-May, Cibus, along with 49 Italian companies, participated at Bangkok's Thaifex food fair, considered a gateway event for its exposure to Southeast Asian countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, the Philippines, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Vietnam.

At the end of October, Cibus returns to Parma for Cibus Tec, an event that focuses on agriculture and technological innovation in the food industry. The October-28-to-31 event will show off food processing as well as packaging. In late November, Beijing's World of Food trade fair will be co-organized by Cibus and food-and-beverage juggernaut Anuga. The November-26-28 event focuses on giving food producers access to the North Chinese market.

Meanwhile at home, preparations have already begun for Federalimentare4Expo, a large pavilion at the upcoming Milan Expo organised by Federalimentare, the association of food enterprises operating under the umbrella of Italy's powerful industrial employers' association Confindustria, in conjunction with Fiere di Parma, which organizes the annual Cibus event. It will host some 500 companies, consortia and institutional organisations representing the best of 'Made in Italy' in the food sector, allowing visitors to discover Italy's agricultural industries and their main players and products, its brands and the entrepreneurs who have created and developed them.

The project contemplates two adjoining three-storey structures extending over a total of 7,000 sqm of exhibition space, located strategically near one of the main entrances to the fair for visitors and sector professionals alike. The interior and exterior decor will tie in with that of the Italy Pavilion, for which the food enterprises pavilion will provide an industrial 'mirror'.

There will be nine theme routes involving 3D-image projections, scenery and other interactive elements dedicated to key sectors in the food industry - milk, cheese and derivative products; vegetable preserves; dressings; flour, pasta and pizza; meat; fish; beverages; sweets; herbs and spices - enabling visitors to discover the historical and cultural patrimony of the products and producers involved. The pavilion will also provide a focus for food-sector relations and events, with its two terraces and a multipurpose room seating 1,500 slated to host around 200 meetings, conventions and other initiatives over the course of the six-month World's Fair.