Companies from Tanzania, the Philippines and Serbia shine at international trade fair in Germany.

ITC News

Rewarding experience

"We are exposed to the latest requirements of the European spice market, the customers, competitors and new business opportunities here. Meeting new and old customers builds trust," says Akley Mbaye from SAT Holistic Group Ltd. Tanzania.

Along with five other spice producing companies, Akley flew to Frankfurt to display his company's products at the Fi Exhibition and engaged in fruitful B2B marketing experience.

Viridium Tanzania Ltd, Trianon Spices, 1001 Organics, Simba Vanilla and JJ Growers brought spices from Tanzania, including cardamom, vanilla, black pepper and cinnamon, to the fair.

Sterling Tiu, the CEO of Tropicana Food Products from the Philippines believes that attending trade fairs is critical. "Buyers often have a preference for physically seeing the products rather than just looking at them on-line," he says.

And for Aleksandar Pantelic of SB Brava company, a first-time exhibitor, the participation has its own rewards.

"Our company produces frozen soft food products and so this is our opportunity to find new, smaller and direct buyers from the niche food industry buyers."

New connections, new markets

It's just been the first day at the fair and Akley is already smiling.

"We have surely connected with new buyers in the European market. I made 8-10 new contacts that are potential customers," he says, adding that participation in Biofach 2019 with support from the first phase of European Union (EU) - East African Community (EAC) Market Access Upgrade Program (MARKUP) won them customers in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France and Denmark.

"Now in the second phase the EU-EAC MARKUP II project is building our knowledge of marketing and market linkages by providing us with advanced knowledge about existing trends in the European market," he adds.

The Food Ingredient exhibition has been uniting the world's leading food and beverage suppliers, buyers, R&D experts and production specialists for over 30 years.

"We find new and consistent customers at trade fairs such as Fi and this enables us to diversify our exports," explains Sterling who is already exporting to buyers in Germany and the Czech Republic following participation in the Anuga trade fair in 2023 with support from the EU's ARISE Plus Philippines project.

Action-packed participation

Spices from Tanzania, value-added coconut products from the Philippines and frozen fruit products from Serbia made for a vibrant and diverse display of food ingredient products with the support of European Union (EU) funded projects EU-EAC MARKUP II, ARISE Plus Philippines and The Trade Promotion East (TPE) Balkan States and Central Asia supported by the Government of Switzerland.

Previous Next

• Twitter
• Linkedin
• Facebook
• Mail
• Copy URL