Savour culinary delight

Experience the richness of flavour of Italian cuisine with the Speciality Food Festival

The Italian Food and Beverage in Dubai project, developed by the Italian Chamber of Commerce, has commercially promoted 193 Italian companies in the food sector in the UAE. The project started in June 2021 and offered the companies, with a reduced investment, the necessary tools to approach a rich, competitive and strategic market such as the UAE. In addition, through the creation of the B2B portal, it was possible to promote the selected companies in the UAE and in the Gulf countries, in preparation for the participation in the trade fair the following November.

The Italian companies were selected by the Chamber on the basis of a careful evaluation of the characteristics of the product, packaging and respective websites. This project also included the companies that took part in the projects developed in collaboration with Lazio Innova (Lazio Region), Confartigianato Imprese Calabria (Calabria Region) and the Chamber of Commerce of Catanzaro.

The project included six months of promotion of the selected companies by a Chamber Manager, a representative office made available to the companies for as many as six months, the promotion of the companies in five Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE, and a trade fair participation in the 'Speciality Food Festival'.

In addition to all this, the Chamber carried out further activities such as the drafting of a final report, a telephone call to invite local operators to visit the companies during the days of the above mentioned fair, the creation of the online B2B portal and its promotion on the Chamber's social networks and finally the presentation of the companies participating in the project to specialised distributors, restaurateurs, food and beverage managers etc.

The Italian Chamber of Commerce in the UAE organised the participation of 193 companies in the 'Speciality Food Festival', held from November 7- 9, 2021, as part of the Italian Food and Beverage in Dubai project. This international food and beverage fair saw the participation of trade operators from 33 countries who were able to appreciate the high-quality products of the Italian exhibiting companies and others.

The activities carried out by the Italian Chamber of Commerce were both preceding and following the fair. In particular, the Chamber team, present there with 13 employees, set up the shared stands of the various companies and also made sure that all products were clearly visible to the public.

During the fair, there were 15,000 total visitors and 195 distributors who showed great interest in the displayed products belonging to the various product categories. The Chamber's team, made up of 27 staff members, was committed to promoting the products on display and making the many interested operators taste them. Finally, at the end of the fair, the team brought the products left in the warehouses to the Chamber offices, setting up an exhibition space in order to offer buyers, chefs and distributors the possibility to view the products and have more information about Italian companies.

At the end of the three-day exhibition, the Chamber carried out a survey: 65 questionnaires were sent out, equal to 100 per cent of the exhibitors present. As of November 29, 52 exhibitors had responded, equal to 80 per cent of the total.