Last week I had a free afternoon, so I did a flying visit to the Winter Fancy Foods show held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. My goal for the afternoon was to get an idea if it would be worth it for me to exhibit there next year
But it really was a flying visit - I had about 4 hours, so didn't really have the time to stop and chat with more than a few people
First impressions - B.I.G.
I've been to plenty of big trade shows before, related to my day job, but it was still an eye opener to go to a big food trade show. As a small manufacturer I tend to spend my time around other small guys - the trade show was a reality check that we are really part of a massive specialty food industry (with massive potential and massive competition if you start to become successful). Quite sobering really.
But I did have a chuckle as I was walking around noticing all the open containers and bare handed sampling and tasting of cheese and meat and sauce and dips - I was thinking that if the local county inspector who had picked over my farmers market booth had been there she would have had a heart attack and dropped dead on the spot!
There were very few dedicated hot sauce companies there. (Dave's Insanity was there and I stopped and chatted for a while with these guys http://www.abamerican.com/. - all the way from new york.) But there were many many booths that had a hot sauce (or 3) as part of a product line. My south african compatriot (and inspiration) Nandos was there. They have repackaged with US style labels and are making a push into the north American grocery maker this year, focusing on mid atlantic and LA/San Francisco. More places to buy nandos can only be a good thing.. Now if they could just expand their restaurant chain to the US so we could get some of that peri peri chicken... mmmm
In terms of the show, there are a couple of options for small producers - there was a "New brands on the Shelf" section off on the side of one of the main halls, with about 20 tables, each having about 3 feet of frontage - the advantage of this section is that limited signage was allowed, so you could put up a table with limited signage budget, and not get drowned by your neighbor
There was also an entire hall dedicated to "What's new and Hot". I'm not sure what the difference in criteria between the "New brands" and the "What's hot" sections besides scale and prices of the booths (the "New brands" area was just tables - the "What's Hot" section was booths - prob 5x8
Most of the small exhibitors I spoke to were exhibiting for the first time - most said they had plenty of booth traffic, and lots of leads but obviously couldn't tell how many new accounts they'd get until some weeks after the show.
One exception was a barbecue sauce manufacturer from southern California - this was his 8th show, and clearly he found it worthwhile. He was in the main hall because you can only exhibit in the "New" sections once or twice
But it really was a flying visit - I had about 4 hours, so didn't really have the time to stop and chat with more than a few people
First impressions - B.I.G.
I've been to plenty of big trade shows before, related to my day job, but it was still an eye opener to go to a big food trade show. As a small manufacturer I tend to spend my time around other small guys - the trade show was a reality check that we are really part of a massive specialty food industry (with massive potential and massive competition if you start to become successful). Quite sobering really.
But I did have a chuckle as I was walking around noticing all the open containers and bare handed sampling and tasting of cheese and meat and sauce and dips - I was thinking that if the local county inspector who had picked over my farmers market booth had been there she would have had a heart attack and dropped dead on the spot!
There were very few dedicated hot sauce companies there. (Dave's Insanity was there and I stopped and chatted for a while with these guys http://www.abamerican.com/. - all the way from new york.) But there were many many booths that had a hot sauce (or 3) as part of a product line. My south african compatriot (and inspiration) Nandos was there. They have repackaged with US style labels and are making a push into the north American grocery maker this year, focusing on mid atlantic and LA/San Francisco. More places to buy nandos can only be a good thing.. Now if they could just expand their restaurant chain to the US so we could get some of that peri peri chicken... mmmm
In terms of the show, there are a couple of options for small producers - there was a "New brands on the Shelf" section off on the side of one of the main halls, with about 20 tables, each having about 3 feet of frontage - the advantage of this section is that limited signage was allowed, so you could put up a table with limited signage budget, and not get drowned by your neighbor
There was also an entire hall dedicated to "What's new and Hot". I'm not sure what the difference in criteria between the "New brands" and the "What's hot" sections besides scale and prices of the booths (the "New brands" area was just tables - the "What's Hot" section was booths - prob 5x8
Most of the small exhibitors I spoke to were exhibiting for the first time - most said they had plenty of booth traffic, and lots of leads but obviously couldn't tell how many new accounts they'd get until some weeks after the show.
One exception was a barbecue sauce manufacturer from southern California - this was his 8th show, and clearly he found it worthwhile. He was in the main hall because you can only exhibit in the "New" sections once or twice
