Macfrut to Attract More Foreign Professionals

Cesena, 1 August 2017 – The organisers of Macfrut, the international trade fair for the fruit and vegetable sector, are now at work on the 35th edition to be held from 9 to 11 May 2018 in Rimini, and have already received many requests to participate from foreign operators. In fact, nine months before the start of the 2018 edition, Cesena Fiera’s staff has already implemented several initiatives to attract international professionals to Rimini, the most important being: a strategic alliance with Cibus, the involvement of the German retail giant Rewe, the first edition of the Tropical Fruit Congress, the organisation of international delegations of professionals from the entire supply chain, from pre-harvest to post-harvest.

Strategic alliance between Macfrut and Cibus

The year 2018 has been proclaimed “the year of Italian Food” and Italian food trade fairs have decided to cooperate with one another. Specifically, Macfrut and CIBUS (the International Food Exhibition to be held from 7 to 10 May 2018 in the city of Parma, located 200 kilometres from Rimini) have signed an agreement to encourage operators and incoming foreign buyers to visit the two trade fairs, which both focus especially on product innovation and internationalisation. The agreement entails a series of special offers dedicated to operators who would like to visit both trade fairs on the simultaneous days (9 and 10 May 2018) and will mainly concern logistics, with a higher number of shuttle buses and trains connecting the two cities. An incoming programme was also outlined, with the cooperation of ICE-Agenzia, to bring hundreds of foreign buyers to Parma and Rimini. In addition to accommodation, dedicated tours of the two trade fairs will be available for foreign operators, along with visits to companies and market checks at retail outlets.

Involvement of Rewe

The next edition of Macfrut will see the return of a major international player in the retail sector, Rewe/Eurogroup, which attended the event in Rimini in 2016. The German group will have its own exhibition space and will host a convention, during which it will present its strategies and development lines to its suppliers. Top management will attend this event, as well as 280 fruit and vegetable producers and trading companies from the Mediterranean Basin. Moreover, Ricardo Vazquez, Eurogroup’s manager of tropical products and imports, will be a speaker in the Tropical Fruit Congress, the forum dedicated to mangos and avocados. 

Tropical Fruit Congress

The three-day event will host the first edition of the Tropical Fruit Congress, which is likely to become an annual international forum dedicated to tropical fruit, a segment that is becoming more and more appreciated by consumers. This will be one of the major innovations of the upcoming edition of Macfrut, which will feature prominent international speakers. For this first year, the spotlight will be on two products, i.e. mangos and avocados, focusing on their characteristics, production, origin, consumption, logistics and technology. There already is great interest and several leading associations in producer countries have announced their participation.

Foreign delegations

After last year’s record numbers, with over 1,000 foreign buyers present at the Rimini Expo Centre, Macfrut 2018 will further strengthen the role to be played by foreign delegations from various countries and segments. The successful outcome of the “Macfrut in the Field” area dedicated to pre-harvest technologies has motivated Macfrut’s organisers to try bringing to Rimini groups of qualified operators, especially from Eastern European countries, who are interested also in this segment of the industry.

“Macfrut’s key words are internationalisation and innovation,” said Renzo Piraccini, President of Cesena Fiera. “We are fully committed to this project, hence our decision to launch many new and innovative initiatives aimed at attracting an increasing number of foreign operators to Rimini.”

Image Source: Macfrut