Nearly 450,000 visitors attend HKTDC Food Expo & concurrent fairs

Friday, August 23, 2019

The 30th HKTDC Food Expo, the 11th HKTDC Hong Kong International Tea Fair, the fourth HKTDC Beauty & Wellness Expo, the sixth HKTDC Home Delights Expo and the International Conference of the Modernization of Chinese Medicine & Health Products (ICMCM) have all concluded successfully. The four fairs, organised by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), featured more than 2,100 exhibitors and welcomed a total of nearly 450,000 visitors. The ICMCM was jointly organised by the HKTDC and the Modernized Chinese Medicine International Association.

Benjamin Chau, Deputy Executive Director of the HKTDC, said: “Despite the social incidents seen in Hong Kong in recent months, the four fairs organised by the HKTDC in August, together with the ICMCM, all ran smoothly. Global exhibitors and buyers still view our trade fairs as important one-stop trading platforms for sourcing and business promotion. To connect more exhibitors and buyers, we enhanced the business-matching service at the Trade Hall of the Food Expo and at the Hong Kong International Tea Fair, both of which targeted trade professionals. The Trade Hall attracted nearly 18,000 buyers, including significant numbers from Mainland China and emerging markets such as Cambodia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Poland and Thailand.”

The California State Trade Expansion Program (California STEP) brought 12 food companies from the United States to exhibit at this year’s Food Expo, a stronger presence than in previous years. The exhibitors showcased a variety of specialty foods and beverages such as avocado oils, wines, nuts and chocolate. California STEP Director Jeffrey Williamson said: “We have met with a lot of buyers from Hong Kong and Mainland China who expressed keen interest in our products. Our participating companies feel positive about the new business opportunities they’ve been able to explore here. We have not been affected by the recent social incidents that happened in Hong Kong.” He believed that the city is still a lead market for the state’s exporters entering Asia, with its excellent financial, legal and logistics infrastructure.

Visiting the Tea Fair for the first time was Tai Tai Health Products (Changzhou) International Group, a health tea manufacturer in Mainland China with annual sales of Rmb300 million. Xu Ming, the company’s General Manager, noted the strong demand for slimming tea and detoxification tea in the mainland. “I have found a number of potential suppliers from India, Laos and Mainland China at the fair. We plan to buy US$1 million worth of black tea from an Indian supplier which can help us to provide quality products at competitive prices.”

The concurrent Beauty & Wellness Expo featured more than 110 exhibitors, showcasing a plethora of beauty and wellness products. Hong Kong exhibitor Beauty Sensation Co, Ltd specialises in selling organic skincare products from an Australian brand. Anna Tai, Founder & CEO, said the company joined the expo for the fourth time and the event helped it attract new customers each year. “The average spending per customer was around HK$2,000-3,000 this year, and we were happy to see our sales turnover increase by 50% on the first two days of the expo as compared to last year.”

Hong Kong mattress brand Airland joined the Home Delights Expo for the first time. Maggie Sham, the company’s General Manager – Sales & Marketing (HK), said the expo offered a good opportunity to promote the Airland brand and hoped their sales would reach the HK$1 million mark over the expo period.

The HKTDC interviewed more than 770 visitors during the Food Expo and revealed that 75% of them knew about the utensil-lending service implemented this year. The on-site response was encouraging with more than 22,000 reusable utensils, including food containers, forks and cups, loaned out to visitors over the five-day expo period. Furthermore, numerous visitors heeded the HKTDC’s call to bring their own utensils for food tasting, highlighting the effectiveness of measures to reduce the use of disposable utensils at the expo.

The HKTDC, together with social enterprise BottLess and health insurance company Bupa, has decided to offer the reusable cups from the Food Expo again at various trade fairs in the coming year, helping to promote waste reduction at source and set an example for other large-scale events in Hong Kong.

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