Asia's largest food and beverage innovation exhibition kicks off in Shanghai

SIAL China 2021, Asia's largest food and beverage innovation exhibition, kicked off on May 18 at Shanghai New International Expo Centre in Pudong New Area, Shanghai.

Photo shows the opening ceremony of the 22nd SIAL China. (People’s Daily Online/Sun Boyang)

Covering an area of 180,000 square meters, the exhibition drew over 4,500 exhibitors who brought over 300,000 products in 21 categories, such as beverages, dairy products, snacks, instant food, cooking oil, grain, fruit, vegetables, and condiments. Seven special themed exhibition areas were set up at the event to cater to exhibitors’ various needs.

This year’s exhibition saw far more international exhibitors than last year and attracted 38 international exhibitor groups from France, Argentina, Ireland, Estonia, Brazil, Belgium, Poland and Canada, with the European Union (EU) serving as the region of honor.

A Russian exhibitor discusses business with a guest at the 22nd SIAL China. (People’s Daily Online/Sun Boyang)

The exhibition also designated a special exhibition area for geographical indication (GI) products included in the list of the China-EU GI agreement, which went into effect March 1. The agreement helped bolster trade between China and the EU, and facilitated the integrated development of the world’s food industry.

The exhibition aims to improve Chinese food enterprises’ global abilities and build itself into the most valuable platform for international trade in order to benefit Chinese enterprises and consumers as well as their international counterparts, according to the organizer of the event.

Visitors taste food at a laboratory-grown meat company’s booth at the 22nd SIAL China. (People’s Daily Online/Sun Boyang)

An e-commerce live-streamer promotes products during her live-streaming sales session at the 22nd SIAL China. (People’s Daily Online/Sun Boyang)

The organizer held 10 thematic forums at the exhibition, such as New Retail Summit, International Meat Conference, Global Dairy Forum and Food Supply Chain Forum, where professionals in the food industry exchanged ideas and shed new light on the industrial chain.

The organizer estimated that more than 120,000 professionals from industries including e-business, retail, cold chain logistics, catering service and wholesale attended.