Food From Britain group confirm 'stronger' presence at Gulf Food 2003

The Emirates Salon Culinaire competition an event organised by the Emirates Culinary Guild (ECG), the UAE's association of professional chefs and sponsored by Nestle and Mohamed Hareb Al Otaiba will be held in conjunction with the exhibition.

Like most other participating exhibitors, Food From Britain group believes that the show offers a world of business opportunities and helps participants to tap the rapidly expanding Gulf food market, which is estimated at more than US $9 billion in addition to the growing hotel and restaurant industry.

According to Matthew Nash, Head of Market Development, Food From Britain, 'The food and drink markets of the Gulf Peninsular represent some of the most lucrative but challenging opportunities for food and drink exporters. Affluence and a demand for high quality products drive increased sales from the UK of modern and traditional food and drink articles.' The culture of this region makes it essential to build relationships face to face to really understand how to do business. We know that no better opportunity exists to do this in one place than the Gulf Food show,' he averred.

Business figures reveal that there has been a tremendous growth of the UK food and drink exports. Today, the UK is recognised as the top EU food and drink importer into Bahrain with a quarter of the EU exports. The UK has 17 per cent of the EU exports to the UAE making UK the second of EU suppliers behind Dutch .It is also reported that the UK had a 3.8 per cent share of all food and drink imports from the EU into Saudi Arabia and was ranked the 6th largest from the EU.

The value of dairy products to Dubai have increased incredibly in 2001 to UK pounds 3,542,000 from UK pounds 1,535,000 in the year 2000. The other export categories like fruits and vegetables and drinks have also reported quantum jumps to UK pounds 1,698,000 and UK pounds 15,539,000 respectively in value. The most popular export product has been milk powder which reports a sharp rise from 0.90 million UK pounds in 1999 to 2.77 million pounds in 2001.

Vijay Menon, International Project Manager, DWTC stated, 'Some key market data reveals that the Gulf's population growth is amongst the highest in the world and per capita income levels in the Middle East also rank the highest. It is also reported that 70 per cent of Dubai's food imports are re-exported to neighbouring countries. He said, the Middle East hotel sector has surpassed 2001 growth. Dubai's hotels and hotel apartments earnings have reflected a 7.5 growth over the year 2000 posting an earning of Dhs 3.2 billion.

He stated that 26 new properties catering to Dubai's growing hospitality industry are coming up this year taking the number to 403 hotels and hotel apartments. The number of hotels has increased by 12 per cent since 2000-01. By the end of this year, Abu Dhabi hotel rooms will record an increase by 17 per cent to 5,675 rooms, he informed.

The UAE's food retail sector is estimated at more than $2.5 billion and annually grows by 5 to 10 per cent. Around 85 per cent of 'finished' foodstuffs are imported while 15 per cent are locally made. 'These socio-economic indicators have become key pre-determining factors for exhibitors to participate,' he pointed out.

According to Vijay, the 9th edition will be the largest edition ever of the biennial Gulf Food, Hotel and Equipment Exhibition. The response has been overwhelming and the organisers have decided to add Hall 2 to the six halls earlier finalised at the Dubai International Exhibition Centre, he informed.

The exhibition's product profile is extensive and includes food and beverage products, refrigeration and catering equipment for restaurants and hotels, food processing machinery, food packaging and labeling equipment, coding and measuring equipment, a vast range of disposable items for use in the catering, hospitality and hotel industries and hospitality information systems.