AsiaFruit Congress wraps up

While there are about three hours left to go here at the AsiaFruit Logistica expo, the Asia Fruit Congress just wrapped up. The total event, which teamed the organizational power of Fruit Logistica and the industry knowledge of Chris White and Market Intelligence, came off well. About 650 delegates attended from 50 countries, and exhibitors ran about 120 in number from24 countries. Next year's show is in Hong Kong from Sept. 10-12.

Compared to the PMA and United, the production values were solid but not larger than life. There were no giant video boards for the speakers, and neither was there any meal served in association with the event.

One thing that worked well at this show were one-hour networking breaks between AsiaFruit Congress sessions. With a spacious hall to circulate, the networing breaks were great opportunities to meet traders. The sessions themselves lent to high levels of interaction and plenty of questions from attendees.
From the theme of those questions, I can tell some suppliers are wondering if the investment in food safety will be rewarded with higher prices, and if savings from direct relationships with retailers will be passed on to them. I'll try to put a couple of the Q and A sessions in audio format for the blog.

While traffic on the expo floor is bound to be down today, it didn't suffer much at all on the second day. All in all, the best thing about this show was that it had produce people there. Whether from India, China, the U.S., or Thailand, produce people share the passion and the pain of perishables. And that goes beyond culture and language.