The fourth edition of Greece Food Expo, which took place at the Metropolitan expo centre in Athens last month, welcomed more than 60,000 industry professionals from 25,000 companies active in Greece, Cyrpus and 60 other countries around the world, according to the organisers.
The event, which took place from 18 to 20 March, also welcomed representatives from local government and embassies, as well as institutional bodies and chambers of commerce.
Among those to visit the event was Greece's Minister of Rural Development and Food, Evangelos Apostolou, who inaugurated the exhibition, stressing the importance of Greece Food Expo in building the country's agri-food industry. It was a sign of the importance of the show that Minister Apostolou made two visits to Metropolian Expo during the three days of the event, on Saturday and Monday.
Opening the event, the president of the organising company behind Food Expo Greece, Forum S.A, Nikos Choudalakis, discussed the "promising future" for food and beverage and Greece,, which is expected to play a "key role" in the reconstruction of the country.
Attendees
In terms of the makeup of visitors to this year's show, some 30% of this year's attendees were professionally active in the small retail and food and beverage trade. Just over a quarter (26%) hailed from the restaurant, coffee shop and confectionery sector, while 11% were engaged in the production sector.
There was a high attendance of international buyers, with some 650 foreign buyers joining around 2,500 food traders at the event. In total, the organisers hosted 11,500 scheduled b2b meetings between buyers and Greek exhibitors in a specially-designed space in Hall 3. This was a record number of meetings in the history of Food Expo Greece.
Food Expo Greece was also held alongside Oenotelia, the international wine and spirits exhibition, which was held alongside the Greek Wine Federation, and also welcomed many thousands of industry representatives.
For further information, visit www.foodexpo.gr
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
