“Are food shows worth attending?”

Expert Eye with

John Shepherd

Owner and Managing Director of Partridges

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A perennial activity in the life of someone in the speciality food world is visiting food shows in all their shapes and sizes

As everyone knows, they can be very tiring experiences for both visitor and particularly salesperson, of course relieved by relentless food and beverage tasting opportunities and the camaraderie of meeting many old friends and one or two staunch enemies from the past. They also take several days out of the working routine and add tens if not hundreds of emails to the great nemesis of our working lives – the inbox – which is already a struggle to keep under control in the first place. However, like the lure of a bacon sandwich or aroma of coffee first thing in the morning, it is hard to avoid the lure of the well-organised food show. Over the course of the last month I have visited two – one in London and one near Glasgow.

The event in London was Speciality & Fine Food Fair at Olympia, held in early September. The very first show took place on a racecourse in Surrey and there were not many stands. Fast forward to 2015 and the stands took up both floors in Olympia, with a huge range of foods from around the World and the aura of the Great Taste Awards hanging in the air. Personally I found the transformation of the show perfectly reflected the transformation of the speciality food sector. Someone said to me after the show that they felt it lacked innovation but I couldn’t disagree more, especially when one remembers the speciality food world in 1990.

The second show was held at Gleneagles, close to Glasgow, and run by Scottish Food and Drink. The sumptuous surroundings of the hotel and the magnificent countryside were matched by the amazing range of suppliers and the quality of the products they were presenting. Following various one-to-one meetings I felt we should be selling nearly every product we saw, although I may have been swayed by the sound of the bagpipes and the warmth of the Talisker – not to mention the recollection that I am, of course, half Scottish.
However, the fact is that many Scottish producers have perfect provenance in that they own the land on which the product is made or that it plays an integral part in the production process. Not only that, the packaging and quality of the food was extremely high and the meticulous organisation of the event meant that no scone was left unturned. Alright, stone unturned.

Despite the great buzz at each event, in the cold light of day comes the realisation that you cannot list everything – especially in the run up to Christmas when shelves are already bulging. As a result, some great products unfortunately miss the cut. It is also hugely helpful, of course, if an existing distributor can be employed.

At Speciality we took on about 10 new producers but touched base with perhaps 30+ existing suppliers, and realised that we are in a fast-expanding new universe of startups and artisans and do not know where it will end. From Scotland I expect we will take on about five new producers, but the real lesson for me has been the inspiring stories, the can-do attitude of the producers and the very high quality of the products.

Are they worth attending? My conclusion: see you at Gulfood next February.