The bakery, pastry shop and cafeteria, new leading roles at Alimentaria & Hostelco 2024

Devoted to coffee, tea, pastries, baking, ice cream, chocolate and complements, the new Coffee, Bakery & Pastry space at Alimentaria & Hostelco will offer a comprehensive range of products, services, equipment, accessories and technology in these key areas for the Horeca channel. The event will thus bring together leading companies in a specialised area and reveal the latest trends and new business models through round tables, tastings and demonstrations.

Alimentaria & Hostelco is set to launch Coffee, Bakery & Pastry, a new space with  highly innovative products in the fields of coffee, bread and pastries, thanks to the offers of the main participating brands complemented by activities conducted by leading experts. This area will also seek to facilitate meetings between distribution, retail and Horeca channel professionals, encourage exchanges of knowledge, popularise emerging trends in the market and promote innovation and networking at home and abroad.

Numerous leading brands have confirmed their presence in the new sector, including Alma/Fincafe, Blupura, Bongard, Bridor, Café Árabo, Cafés Baqué, Cafés el Criollo, Cafés el Tostadero, Cafés Novell, Covim, Delicias Coruña, Farinera Coromina, Grupo Alacant, Iberital, La Spaziale, La Tosteria, Le 5 Stagioni, Le Monde des Crepres, Markibar, Massimo Zanetti, Molino Bongiovanni, Molino dalla Giovanna, Molino Denti, Molino Naldoni, Molino Petra, Molino Rivetti, Monbake, Okin, Panibois, Panike, Parber Baking Systems, Pastissart, Rheavendors, Sunmix, Triticum, Twinkle Baker Decor, Wiesheu GMBH and Zeelandia. Among many others, they will showcase their products and propose different activities.

Champions of bread, pizza, coffee and cakes
Apart from the commercial exhibition, experiences such as tastings and training sessions will be scheduled in this area. The main events will include the Spanish final of the World Neapolitan Pizza Championship, declared World Heritage by UNESCO, and demonstrations by the bakery team made up of David Hernández and Roger Vilardosa, who represented Spain at the 2023 Mondial Du Pain.

The area will also be enlivened by the demonstrations of pastry masters and champions such as Yohan Ferrant, the pastry chef at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Josep Esturi and Lluc Crusellas, World Chocolate Master 2022, together with Taula Dolça, the young and internationally renowned pastry making collective. There will also be fascinating panel discussions endorsed by collaborating entities such as the Baking School of Barcelona and Sabadell and the Bakers’ Guild of the province of Barcelona.

The sector will also host exhibitions, tastings and demonstrations of gastronomic techniques applied to pastry making and combinations with specialised coffees by professionals from the Pa de Kilo signature bakery and the team from the training centre at The Coffee Academy.

Latest trends and innovations
Coffee, Bakery & Pastry will reflect the importance of these sectors, as well as their new trends and business models. Baking is one of the most important sectors in the country; with 45,000 points of sale, it meets each individual’s daily need of 35kg per year. Bread production totals 745,896 tonnes per year, while that of confectionery and pastries is now higher than 203,000 and still growing.

The trends on view in this new Alimentaria & Hostelco space will include the growing demand for healthier foods, as well as preferences for options with less sugar, fat, gluten and carbohydrates that incorporate fruits as sweeteners and the return to traditional recipes with organic ingredients.

Coffee will also play a leading role. The “king of the bar” is one of the most popular drinks in Spain and the second most common in the world, after water. Spain is also one of the leading countries in Europe when it comes to the production of roasted and soluble coffee and its sales in the Horeca channel are expected to increase by 6.8% this year. The new area will display new machinery, varieties and gourmet specialities, as well as new and ever more popular models of establishments such as coffee bakeries.

Everything in food, equipment and Horeca channel
Alimentaria & Hostelco, organised by Alimentaria Exhibitions – Fira de Barcelona, anticipates the attendance of around 3,200 exhibiting companies, which will occupy 100,000 m2 and 7 halls, practically the whole of Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Vía venue. It also expects to receive 100,000 professional visitors, thus reaffirming its leadership as the main platform for promoting business, internationalisation and networking.

The 600 exhibitors due to attend Hostelco, Restaurama and Coffee, Bakery & Pastry will occupy halls 4, 6 and 7 at the Gran Vía venue. In this respect, the collective force of the two fairs will make up a complete platform focused on the Horeca channel, an economic sector of enormous importance, as it represents 6.2% of the Spanish GDP and employs more than 1.7 million people.

Barcelona, 21st December 2023

Mª Gloria Dilluvio – 932332172

gdilluvio@firabarcelona.com