Gulfood 2017

Gulfood, the world’s largest annual food exhibition, returns to Dubai World Trade Centre from February 26 to March 2, 2017. Having launched in 1987 in Dubai, Gulfood 2017 is set to undergo its biggest ever change in layout, format and visitor experience, since its first event.

Gulfood 2016 attracted a record estimate of 90,000 visitors, many of whom attended on multiple days and over 5,000 companies represented from over 120 countries. The 22nd edition of the show is set to attract more than 5,000 local, regional and international exhibitors in a newly evolved format and lay-out featuring over 1,000 new-to-market products on display. To increase user-friendliness and trading potential, Gulfood 2017 will focus on finished food and beverages and highlight eight of the biggest commodity trading sectors with dedicated halls organized by beverages; health, wellness & free-from; dairy; fats & oils; pulses, grains & cereals; power brands, meat & poultry and world food. The sectorisation of Gulfood comes amid growing global sales across the eight show components.

With space already completely sold-out to exhibitors, Gulfood 2017 will span more than 1,000,000 ft2 of indoor exhibition space and purpose-built temporary structures, and offers more than 1,000 new-to-show food and beverage producers. Gulfood 2017 will feature 120 national pavilions and will also see hundreds of international heads of state, ministers, government officials and scores of national trade associations eager to ink lucrative bi-lateral trade agreements among tens of thousands of anticipated visitors.

In addition to its considerably expanded sourcing opportunities, one of Gulfood’s undoubted draws is the annual Emirates Culinary Guild International Salon Culinaire - world’s largest single-entry chefs’ competition. This is a renowned competitive platform for the regions culinary talent and this year will be no different. More than 1,000 of the region’s top professional chefs, pastry chefs, cooks and bakers, will be aiming to show they can stand the heat in the kitchen, going stove to stove in a series of competitions judged by a panel of experts from the World Association of Chefs Societies (WACS). Visitors will also converge at Halal World Food — the major global trading platform for international F&B businesses looking to benefit from on the burgeoning halal sector that is witnessing momentous growth throughout the world.

In addition, the eighth edition of the Gulfood Innovation Awards will recognize best-in-class superiority and novelty across the region’s food and drink industry. With 20 categories, the event is judged by an international panel of independent industry experts, with winners to be announced during the gala ceremony hosted alongside the exhibition. Moreover, a record number of local F&B businesses are set to launch their international product lines at Gulfood 2017. Four hundred Emirates-based F&B companies will be in attendance, making it the highest number ever from within the UAE.
With global tourism on track to hit 1.5 billion by 2020 and greater consumer awareness of different foods from around the world, an increasing number of countries are keen to show what they can offer the global F&B industry, and Gulfood is the ultimate platform to do just that. Several nations will make their debuts at Gulfood this year and for the first time at this year show visitors will get the chance to see on the best F&B products from Finland, Malta, Somalia and Azerbaijan.

Timings: 26 February – 1 March 11am-7pm, 2 March - 11am-5pm