01/03/2013
The grapevine delivers apprehension for some Gulfood exhibitors
If visitor and exhibitor numbers are anything to go by then there are no signs of economic slowdown in the Gulf region. Gulfood 2013 was Adelphi’s fifth consecutive Gulfood show, footfall was much stronger than in 2012 and the number of solid enquiries increased almost four fold on last year.
The show itself continues to grow, so much so that there is barely enough time to make your way around every exhibitor stand in the four days that the show runs for.
As ever, Gulfood was far from being a show only for those from the Gulf region, we received enquiries from almost all corners of the globe, and look forward to delivering world class filling and capping machinery to new customers over the coming months.
However it is with mixed feelings that we leave Gulfood this year. The show itself was fantastic for us, but we hear on the grapevine that Gulfood 2014 may not be happening, at least not in its current guise.
Rumor has it that the machinery section of the show will be split from the rest and run as a separate exhibition at a different time of year. Having seen how the show has grown over the past few years we can understand that space is becoming an issue, but we can’t help feeling that this move will seriously compromise the value of the show for many of us in the machinery sector.
You see we have found that there are a lot of visitors to the food hall that wander over to ‘our side’ of the show and end up being very good leads for us. Would they have gone to a machinery specific show? We suspect that a large proportion would not. Time will tell.
We’re going to give this some more thought before booking a stand for 2014…
