SIAL focuses on innovation

The largest food exhibition of the year in the world, SIAL is gearing up to welcome visitors from all corners of the globe.

Held once every two years SIAL is one of the most leading food fairs of the worid and a unique global food event featuring the world’s leading retail and food service buyers in one location. To be held in Paris, Villepinte, October 21-25, the fair attracts more than 6 thousand exhibitors and 147 thousand visitors from not only the European Union but also from the rest of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. This year SIAL is launching a ‘Food connections’ concept – an innovation-related strategy demonstrating that the exhibition focuses primarily on product and market trends to ensure future business prospects.

Covering all food sectors – retail distribution, foodservice, international trading – will be represented in this global food market place at the 25th edition of SIAL Paris as the worid’s largest international food and beverage trade exhibition in 2012. SIAL, a global observatory of food innovation that reveals current food trends New in 2012! Trends & Innovations becomes SIAL Innovation. SIAL Innovation has been a key SIAL event for more than 10 years. A unique opportunity for deciphering consumer trends and innovations in the food markets worldwide, in partnership with XTC World Innovation.
At the cross roads of gobal food supply and demand, SIAL establishes numerous food connections between industry professionals, who flock to this key food market place to display the highy innovative products that will be found in the supermarket facings of tomorrow.
A real asset to sales performance, innovation is also one of the most reliable and valuable forward-looking indicators, By giving its right full place to innovation, and constant monitoring and analysis, SIAL assures its very egitimacy and modem stamp.
“SIAL after SIAL, we are concerned that the exhibition is not merely atrade fair but a forum for interaction that highlights the leading trends, major innovations and market rearties of tomorrow… With 140,000 visitors and 6,000 exhibitors, SAL’s ambitions have defınitely been met and a roadmap clearly defined: to cultivate its role as a visionary, purchasing advisor and wellspring of untapped trends,” says Olivia Milan – Grobois, SIAL Grouo Director.
For the very first time , the Innovation hub in Hall 6 houses both SIAL Innovation and its Observatory, which get to the heart of global innovation and trends and the SIAL d’Or award winners, namely products that have been sold successfully in the supermarkets of the 29 countries represented. This hub levers growth for the products selected and is an ideal seedbed for the curiosity and imagination of all visitors Innovation connections throughout the exhibition.
Innovation, the hallmark of SIAL, naturally permeates all the key areas and themes of the exhibition: Foodservice, located with in La Cuisine by SIAL, provides demonstrations and tasting sessions revolving around innovative products, SIAL Innovation will see an enhanced conference program of events focusing on discovery, innovation and trends. This year sees the launch of SIAL TV – a TV stage broadcasting news on the food sector. It will include conferences, discussions and interviews focusing on major issues such as nutrition, sustainability, producer-netailer relationship, and much more.
Culinary design, a spectacular forecasting exercise whose innovative characteristics are showcased in the Food Design exhibition.
In-Food Center (dedicated to semi-processed food products and ingredients), a true “exhibition within the exhibition”, this sixth event feeding into the debate on innovation and demonstrating the key role played by ingredients in the industry’s creative process.

IPA, the International Exhibition of Food Processing and Packaging where tomorrow’s products are invented SIAL TV with a program of discussions, round tables, conferences, interviews and documentaries, including points of view on numerous topics such as civil society, sustainable development, the market, nutrition and health, and the food industry. A not to be missed daily spot “One Minute for Innovation”, featuring the products of the future, is broadcasted from the SIAL Innovation Observatory.
In partnership with TNS and XTC World Innovation, for the very first time SIAL 2012 proposes to take a unique crosswise view of the supply and demand revolving around food innovation trends©.
On the one hand, there are the global food innovation avenues and trends that guide and inspire manufacturers when launching new products, that is real-time insight into the food offer based on the XTC World Innovation database. On the other hand, there is the consumers’ perception of the principal international markets, namely a summary of the TNS research conducted in seven countries: France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, Russia, the USA and China,

Once cross-referenced this data clarifies the food innovation offer and consumer demand praviding valuable analysis for the entire global food industry. Sometimes confirming, often bringing surprises, it ilustrates perceptions that differ from one country to another. SIAL was the one to take this initiative the logical culmination of a legitimate process. Right from the beginning, SIAL has aways been the place to discover the world’s food trends. Through monitoring and analysis, by developing bold initiatives and assembling the top experts, SIAL has now become the largest food innovation exhibition in the world.