The industry's leading trade show will be held in April next year with its usual international participation
Alimentaria commits to 2022 and calls for a Gastronomic Forum with a wider offer this autumn
The Spanish food, drinks and foodservice industry will have an important meeting point in October this year with the celebration of Gastronomic Forum Barcelona, which is preparing a special edition strengthened with the planned participation of some exhibiting companies from Alimentaria & Hostelco, which will finally be held in April 2022, when a more favourable situation is expected for the participation of national and international companies and professionals, which will allow a large event to be held again.
In addition, Gastronomic Forum Barcelona will take place on the same dates as Alimentaria FoodTech, the trade show on food processing and preservation, in a week dedicated to food sustainability at the same time Barcelona becomes World Sustainable Food Capital for 2021.
Gastronomic Forum Barcelona will be the benchmark event for the country’s food and gastronomy industry this year, with the aim of contributing to the revitalisation of the sector. The event, organised by Fira de Barcelona through Alimentaria Exhibitions, is working on an edition which will take place from 18th to 20th October at the Montjuïc venue and which will expand its usual format by adding to its offer the exhibitors from Alimentaria & Hostelco who are interested in participating this year in a national event for the industry. Thus, in addition to the usual small producers from the primary sector and food artisans, it will be able to bring together a larger representation of companies from the foodservice, equipment, services and distribution sectors.
In this sense, after evaluating the evolution of the pandemic, the international mobility restrictions and consulting exhibitor companies, the trade fair institution has decided to boost this event in autumn and hold a large Alimentaria & Hostelco from the 4th to the 7th of April 2022, thus recovering its biennial periodicity in even years and guaranteeing its usual levels of participation and international attendance. The change of dates for Alimentaria & Hostelco comes after a dialogue with the industry’s productive, associative and institutional network regarding the event scheduled for May of this year (after the April 2020 event was postponed due to Covid-19) with a proposal adapted to current circumstances, both conceptually and in terms of exhibition space.
The managing director of Alimentaria Exhibitions, J. Antonio Valls, assures that “we want to commit to Alimentaria in 2022 with a size and participation that will once again boost international business and, together with Hostelco, maintain the quality and value proposition of previous editions, which have made it a global benchmark for the industry“. However, he specifies that “any national company which would have liked to participate in Alimentaria & Hostelco this year now has the opportunity to do so at Gastronomic Forum Barcelona, in a special edition which will place it among the country’s major food and gastronomy events“.
Sustainable Food Week
Also, coinciding with Barcelona’s World Sustainable Food Capital status, sustainability will have a clear leading role both at Gastronomic Forum Barcelona, which will be one of the focal points of its various activities, and at Alimentaria FoodTech, which will also focus on sustainability applied to food processing and preservation and which will be held alongside the Hispack (packaging) trade show at the Gran Via venue from the 19th to the 22nd of October.
These events will coincide with the celebration in Barcelona of the Global Forum for the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact from the 19th to the 21st of October, an international recognition supported by the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations), in which 200 participating cities commit to developing sustainable, fair and healthy agri-food models.
Alimentaria & Hostelco constitute one of the main platforms of international reference with the most complete and transversal offer for the food and drinks industry, foodservice, hospitality equipment and its value chain. At its last edition in 2018, this event brought together 4,500 companies and 150,000 professional visitors, 25% of whom were from abroad.
Featured face-to-face events before and after the summer
Gastronomic Forum Barcelona, Alimentaria FoodTech and Hispack are some of the on-site events that Fira de Barcelona plans to hold this year, with which it will gradually normalise its trade fair activity.
In this sense, the General Manager of the institution, Constantí Serrallonga, emphasized “the importance, in such a complex context, of resuming in the coming months the celebration of events in our venues of Montjuïc and Gran Via to become once more a driver of the much-needed economic and social reactivation”.
Therefore, before the summer, B-Travel and Barcelona Bridal Fashion Week will take place in June, and Automobile Barcelona and BforPlanet, a congress dedicated to promoting the application of the SDGs in the private sector, will be held in July. These trade shows are added to the two major international events scheduled for these months at the Gran Via venue, ISE (Integrated Systems Europe), the largest AV industry trade show, and MWC Barcelona, a world benchmark in mobile technology and communications.
In autumn, the trade show calendar will intensify with the aforementioned food and packaging trade shows, along with other leading events such as Seafood Expo, Expoquimia, Eurosurfas, Equiplast and Industry, IoT Solutions World Congress, the International Boat Show, Caravaning, Smart City Expo World Congress and Barcelona Building Construmat/Piscina&Wellness Barcelona, among others.
In the coming months, the trade fair venues will once again resume their activity and their economic impact, by hosting different trade events with all the safety and prevention measures outlined in the thorough protocol drawn up by Fira de Barcelona in collaboration with experts and the advice of the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona.
Barcelona, 26 de febrero de 2021
Susana Santamaria / Salvador Bilurbina
93.452.11.04 / 93.452.21.23
ssantamaria@alimentaria.com / sbilurbina@firabarcelona.com