After a week of celebrating the end of my MBA it was straight back into working on a Sunday with a trip to the Speciality Food Fair at London’s Olympia after a delicious healthy breakfast at a friend’s house to try and stop me over sampling! With over 850 exhibitors both familiar faces and plenty of new ones to meet too I was excited to see what would be in store and to see what the appetite would be for the international business support and development that I can offer to those brands.

Loving the vibes

What I love about the food and drink fairs generally is the way that the product samples act as a great way for both exhibitors and visitor to interact and serves as a way for each party to ask the other questions.

What I also love is the general warmth and passion with which many of the exhibitors talk to you, even when you are effectively trying to sell your services to them despite them paying to exhibit and to try to sell to you!

First stop was to drop some heavy cheese samples from one of my clients to one of our distributors exhibiting at the show and to introduce myself in person to the buyer there.

Then a general look round the first floor where many of the small producers were based and with whom I really like interacting. Interestingly there too were many international (European) companies exhibiting looking for entry into the UK market (maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way!) and I gave a few tips and advice to those brands where I could to help them on their journey.

Whilst I’ve still got some of the exhibition hall to cover tomorrow the best new product highlights for me so far are:

1. Sgaia foods

This new friendly company sell ‘mheat’ – that is a vegan meat made with wheat and soya protein. Inspired by their italian heritages this duo are looking to revolutionise the vegan market with an offering of italian style meats that of course are entirely not comprised of meat!

And the steak sample  I tried was undoubtedly really tasty!

Definitely one to watch for gaining traction in the future!

2.Fravocado (Avocado ice-cream)

Not really a big ice cream fan (shock horror!) and although there were plenty of I ice-cream or ice-cream alternatives on offer at the show (some of which I did also sample) this stood out to me as a great new innovative product and the sample infused with rose and basil was to die for!

Lots of luck for this brand and bring your distribution up north in England as soon as possible!

3.Troo Granola

A bright and eye catching brand of easy to make granola toasting kits at home – for breakfast or other occasions that stays fresh for a week.

Launched at the fair itself this brand has a lot of offer a number of consumer segments and to appeal to both the older and the younger health conscious but time deprived millennial audience.

Helenor the lady with the inspiration and promoting the product was full of beans (or probably her granola!) talking about the product and her journey to launch so far.

Good luck to her!