Buyers from some of China's largest retailers visited the Aussie pavilion at SIAL China in Shanghai last week, according to organisers.
Food South Australia facilitated the Australian pavilion which brought together 57 food and beverage companies from across Australia – the largest contingent of companies and the largest space ever booked at SIAL China.
Food South Australia CEO Catherine Sayer said all the major retailers came visited the pavilion this year, including Vanguard, Walmart, Metcash, Alibaba, and several e-commerce platforms.
“This doesn’t necessarily happen at every tradeshow,” Sayer said. “Some businesses actually had orders placed at the show which is highly unusual.”
“This is the most significant food and beverage tradeshow in China in my opinion. Every year it has grown in terms of numbers of exhibitors and buyers who come through, but we still get a very high standard of buyers.”
Sharon Thurin, founder of Slim Secrets, (pictured below with export consultant Romeo Kekic) who attended SIAL for the first time this year, said it was one of the busiest shows she had ever exhibited at.
“We had some incredible leads from 7Eleven, Costco, JD.com, Tao bao, Alibaba, a number of larger supermarkets and more. However probably the most exciting result is that we are about to sign an agreement with a very reputable and impressive Chinese distributor that will help look after sales and marketing for us over there,” Thurin said.
“Our healthy snack bars were the most popular, particularly the ones that contained berries. Healthy high protein snacking is relatively new to China so education and awareness will play a large part in our success there."
Other Aussie exhibitors included the Almond Board, Australian Pure Fruits, Bickford’s Group, Golden North, Hilliers, Macro Meat, Maxwell Foods, Oleapak, Panda Honey, Pureharvest, San Remo, Select Harvests Food Products, Simplot, Superbee Honey, Tru Blu Beverages, Tucker’s Natural and Vincenzo Curcio, and Wine in a Glass.
Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) also had an Australian Meat Industry stand which included around 20 meat industry exhibitors including JBS Australia, Northern Cooperative Meat Co, Sanger Australia, and Thomas Foods International.
This year, SIAL organisers predicted more than 80,000 people attended the show, which aims to offer producers new avenues of distribution and collaboration in China.
SIAL China had around 3200 exhibitors representing more than 70 countries, split into 21 unique food sectors and spread over 13 halls.
