Tag Archives: seafood

SAPORE Trade Expo: a Tasting Experience

The next event in our hectic February agenda is SAPORE Tasting Experience (at Rimini Fiera from 25th to 28th February) is more than a trade expo. It is the event dedicated to all those wanting to know the future of foodservice for eating out.

At its disposal, there are eight halls of the west wing of the Rimini expo centre for updating on tastes, rites and trends in a world with a continuously changing demand. The inauguration ceremony is scheduled for 10.30 am on Saturday 25th in the south foyer. Maurizio Melucci, Emilia Romagna Regional Councillor for Tourism, will take part in the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Two important events will follow: the assignment of the 2012 Innovation Awards for the most innovative products on the market and the appointment with the inauguration conference organized by Fipe Confcommercio. Business unit manager Patrizia Cecchi confirms, ´Rather than a showcase, SAPORE will be a real… tasting experience, thanks to the new products on show and the countless appointments to innovate the Horeca channel´s business (show cooking with award-winning chefs, Sapore University courses, guided tasting sessions of wine and Italian craft beers, fresh and dry pasta and brewery specialities from all over the world, as well as conferences to analyze the latest trends and the presentation of interesting successful cases in the foodservice world.´

The expo therefore features a complete showcase of products and technologies from the world of catering, pasta, beer, seafood, pizza, oil, wine, regional specialities and frozen produce. Each of these sectors will be represented by the excellence of the enterprises and their proposals, alongside events and opportunities for discovering first-hand new experiences of business formats. Approximately 400 foreign buyers are awaited at the exhibition, where they will meet exhibitors according to an agenda scheduled online during the days before the expo.

This is a very effective innovative system for increasing opportunities for business between companies and foreign markets, as well as optimizing buyers´ visits to the expo. Among the key events, the Large-scale Distribution Buyers´ Day scheduled for Monday 27th and dedicated to the new trend ´AYCE´ All You Can Eat – the format with which restaurants charge a fixed price for access to food, then allow customers to consume as much as they want at no additional charge) and the debut of the Sapore Chef Grand Prix Contest

SAPORE 2012 will be held with the patronage of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry Policies, Emilia-Romagna Regional Government, Rimini Provincial Government and CNA Alimentare.

And if you had already planned to visit the SAPORE exhibition, please  know that we will be there the whole time meeting prospects and clients. It will be a great pleasure to meet you in person: just send us an email at norman|at|desita|dot|it to set up an appointment.

Sodexo and Costco for a sustainable seafood

Food giants Sodexo and Costco have both committed to improve the sustainability of their seafood.

Sodexo, the $21 billion food service company, has announced a goal for all its contracted seafood to be certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) or the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) by 2015.

Under the plan, Sodexo will review all wild caught and farm raised seafood purchases and set short, medium and long-term goals with its contracted seafood vendors.

The target is part of Sodexo’s Better Tomorrow sustainability plan. The Better Tomorrow Plan makes 14 commitments to the environment, health, wellness and community support.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace has announced that after eight months of pressure, the world’s ninth-largest retailer has agreed to remove over a dozen seafood items from sale until the company can find an MSC-certified option. Costco will place a hold on selling Atlantic cod, Atlantic halibut, bluefin tuna, Chilean sea bass, Greenland halibut, grouper, monkfish, orange roughy, redfish, shark, swordfish, skates and rays.

Costco is also in the process of shifting towards more sustainable sources of tuna for fresh, frozen and canned varieties of the fish, Greenpeace said.

Costco will work with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to examine its remaining wild-caught species and determine the best way of moving to sustainable alternatives, Greenpeace said.

Costco and WWF have had a partnership since July of last year. Its first goal was to gauge the adherence of Thai-based shrimp farmers to draft standards drawn up by the Shrimp Aquaculture Dialogue, WWF said, and then to develop a strategy to guide those suppliers to full compliance. (Source: Environmentalleader.com, Photo: Thomas Quine)