A five-day Food, Hotel and Propac (processing, packaging, canning, bottling, labelling and plastics) exhibition held in Jeddah recently had 350 exhibitors displaying their products and equipment across 200 stands with more than 70 per cent of them participating for the first time, according to the show's organisers.

Al Harithy Company for Exhibitions said the event, held from May 26 to 30 at the Jeddah International Exhibition and Convention Centre, was the largest in a long-running biennial series, with the exhibitors coming from 26 countries and close to 6,500 business visitors from Saudi Arabia and neighbouring Gulf states turning up to see the latest equipment and technologies.

"Levels of business conducted were extremely high. By mid-way through the show a massive 90 per cent of the machinery exhibited by Taiwan companies had already been sold with a combined value in excess of $1.2 million," exhibition director Zahoor Siddique said.

"Malaysian companies reported sales of more than $2.5 million and Belgian company Sabert Europe SA more than doubled the level of its sales normally achieved at European exhibitions. Yet even those successes paled in the light of overall sales and orders won by exhibitors at the event," he added.

According to Siddique, American Food Services International struck several new business deals at the show while regional marketing specialist from the US Department of Agriculture had "business worth millions of dollars" conducted from their activities at the event.

As part of the show, the first ever Food Arabia Top Chef cooking contest was held with Reinhart Fuchs, executive chef at the Marriott Hotel in Jeddah, declared the overall winner. Winners of other awards were Tuncay Altuntas, head chef at the Courtyard in Germany (Top Chef International) and Mohammed Siraj Aziz, executive sous chef at the Jeddah Hyatt Regency Hotel (Top Local Chef).