LAS VEGAS – As a boon to an industry still working its way back from the effects of the pandemic, SIAL America, a new trade show uniting the entire food and beverage community, will debut at the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) March 22-24.
The show is the only event in the U.S. that covers 10 sectors of the food and beverage industry, bringing together importers, distributors, food service companies, wholesalers and retailers. It is also the first large-scale, generalist food show focused on supporting the United States’ $1.5 trillion food and beverage market.
SIAL America is a collaboration between Emerald Holding, Inc., that runs more than 140 live events, focused on business-to-business platforms, and Comexposium, one of the world’s leading event organizers and owner of the SIAL brand. The SIAL brand includes 10 international food events in France, Canada, UAE, India, China, Algeria and Indonesia that together deliver more than 700,000 attendees and 16,000 exhibitors annually.
“It’s a great collaboration,” Jessica Blue, Executive Vice President, Emerald, said. “It’s exciting working with another trade show company, and we’re both bringing different strengths. The SIAL team based in Paris is focused on international visitors and exhibitors and we’re working on the U.S. side.”
SIAL America has close to 200 exhibitors at the moment, with registration still open. The show will feature products from the full gamut of food categories, from organic foods to snacks, from fruits and vegetables to meat. Some top brands attending will be See’s Candies, Touchstone Pistachios, USA Rice and the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Association.
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Sessions are comprehensive, with subjects including Cooking with CBD Oil, The Future of Organics, COVID’s Impact on the Food Service Industry, and The Era of Food on Demand, among a host of others.
For its one-on-one meetings, Emerald is focusing on its matchmaking skills with a heavily curated pool of buyers in attendance. “We feel it’s very important, especially in the SIAL America launch year, that the right buyers are there,” Blue said. “It’s important that the exhibitors have the quality of the meetings they are supposed to have, so it is very curated in that regard.”
Inaugural Las Vegas Food & Beverage Industry Week
SIAL America is one component of the recently announced inaugural Las Vegas Food & Beverage Industry Week, scheduled for March 21-24 and which will feature four premiere food shows concurrently at the LVCC. The other three are Emerald’s International Pizza Expo, as well as the Bar & Restaurant Expo (formerly known as Nightclub & Bar Show) and World Tea Conference + Expo, both of the which are produced by Questex.
“We are grateful for our partnership with Emerald and Questex and we are excited to welcome the first-ever Las Vegas Food and Beverage Week to the Las Vegas Convention Center,” Brian Yost, Chief Operating Officer for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), which owns and operates the LVCC, said.
Tim McLucas, Vice President, Bar & Restaurant Group, Questex, in a statement said, “We’re excited to collaborate with Emerald and the LVCVA to bring key food and beverage buyers together in one central location to deliver a new, high-value experience that combines key education, product activations and customer interaction.”
At the Bar & Restaurant Expo, attendees will learn about the latest trends and troubleshoot challenges facing their businesses, while the World Tea Conference + Expo is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
Emerald specifically targeted the March dates for SIAL America to align with its Pizza Expo, now in its 38thyear. Though organizing a new trade show during COVID has made the effort more challenging, Blue said the easy access at the LVCC between SIAL America and Pizza Expo for its participants was important. “There is a nice synergy between those two shows.”
