The winners and losers of HORECA 2024
What food and hospitality entrepreneurs were looking for
Friday, March 15, 2024
A large number of people visited the HORECA 2024 exhibition, which took place at the Metropolitan Expo from 9 to 12 February 2024 and was visited by the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the Minister of Development and Investments, Kostas Skrekas. This year’s exhibition left the feeling that it focused more on the long-awaited tourism and less on the overall food service channel, which for our country remains large in all months of the year. The number of Greek food company exhibitors was smaller than last year. More participants came from the technology, packaging, equipment and service sectors.
Food Expo 2024 operated competitively for the food service market.
Food Expo 2024, which will be held at the same venue from March 9 to 11, 2024, plays a role in: Many companies, even those where most of their turnover comes from partnerships with wholesalers or Ho. Re. Ca points, they decided to choose one of the two exhibitions and finally, they chose the Food Expo. The main reason concerns the expectation for a greater presence of wholesalers and importers from foreign countries. As mentioned before, the absolute number of exhibitors from the entire food industry (cheese, dairy, pies, processed fruit and vegetables, meat) is smaller compared to the 2023 entries. The cash & carry market has shown this year’s in HORECA a great interest in development, as a systemic "player" in the Greek food service, with investments in the sector, more points and an attempt at better, more direct and more specialized service depending on the needs of each business owner point of sale of products, catering or hospitality.
The pursuit of the lowest price has left innovation behind.
From an audience perspective, HORECA 2024 was indeed "embraced" by the country’s professional audience. There were not a few visitors who purposefully traveled from other cities, primarily to look for suppliers and new partnerships. The exhibitors of HORECA 2024 were 500 and correspondingly, the visitors were estimated at 80,284. From the experience of the host exhibitors, FOODReporter was informed that "the price of the offered products and services played the dominant role again." On the one hand, this could be considered expected if the Greek and international situation of food inflation is taken into account. "Interested merchants showed great interest in changing suppliers of several products in their product range, price being the main criterion. Not infrequently, as a means of negotiation, they presented the details of their current agreement with a competitor and asked for a more competitive proposal, allowing them a higher profit margin. On the one hand, it may sound "greedy", but on the other hand it is the reaction of the business world to the increased ancillary costs: Transportation, energy, labor costs", a source in the food service sector who does not wish to be named told FOODReporter. Another executive of the same market said: It took two years for the catering entrepreneurs, as the constant increase in raw materials and overall supply prevented them from properly planning for the financial stability of their business. Now, it makes sense that they are looking for an increased time frame in order to have a financial plan B for a difficult time. They are taking advantage of the fragmentation of certain submarkets and the corresponding willingness of suppliers to increase share by offering attractive first deals."
The rise of the croissant.
In the above environment, there is no room for businessmen to understand the added value that innovation can bring to food, beverages or even equipment products. In the same environment, those exhibitors who promoted food products that offer differentiation did not leave satisfied, as FOODReporter was able to learn. An exception seems to be bakery products, where croissants and their re-digitization, as well as modern technologies with clearly differentiated products, take the lead. In general, interest in specialty coffees was also low.
Resource: FoodReporter, Issue #1124, Page 6.