What should you remember from Tavola 2022?

As mentioned in my previous post, it was good to be back at TAVOLA. Of course, as for any trade show visit, I took notes, pictures, met a few interesting professionals and along my encounters I noted a few trends and discovered a few interesting new products.

Confirmation of what we all already knew

Obviously, the current trends active today in the food industry were well represented at this year’s event. If you had strolled through the alleys of the show, you would have seen how different exhibitors played the cards of local or alternative ingredients, meat substitutes, and more. So, I won’t go into details about these trends again as we have all read about them many times.

Cheers!

But there were other elements worth to explain more in details. First of all, I noted on this year’s show that there was a plethora of aperitif drinks on offer. Left and right, one could see many different creations with or without alcohol. With that in mind, it was no surprise that this year, two aperitifs made it to the top 3 of the Golden Tavola Award in the retail category. The winner was DRINK iT FReSH, a concept of cocktail in frozen bags. Each bag contains all the ingredients and garnish necessary to make your drink. To enjoy a cocktail, a person doesn’t need skills or tons of ingredients as this product is made to simplify the consumer’s life. It’s an interesting product if you ask me, as it also plays on the fact that the ingredients are organic and natural.

With an overload of ginger

Two sub trends seemed to rock the aperitif segment at the show this year.

First, I noted that that the South of France region inspires aperitif creators. Vylmer or Midi Apéritifs were good examples. So, expect that in the coming months the Provence’s aura floats in your drinks.

The second sub trend was to be found in the ingredients. Ginger was actually omnipresent with all types of mixtures using it as a base. Premixed, pure, to be used as an infusion or a replacement in classic cocktails or mocktails… ginger is today in drinks what speculoos used to be in desserts not too long ago.

Better plan

Finally, I noted a certain trend among the young entrepreneurs and startups this year. Usually on tradeshows I find many just participating with the “hope to meet buyers”. And this hope is usually fueled by the conviction that the buyers would definitely stop at their booth because “our product is the greatest innovation and if it’s on the shelve, it would sell without any effort necessary”. Thankfully, this year, I noted that many of the young companies had a more realistic approach. The focus of their participation was not based on a wrong expectation. It was based on a young experience, a decent market presence and an exploratory approach. Personally, I was pleasantly surprised by the maturity of some young companies.

And one of the greatest illustrations of this came from SWET, a range of hot sauces. The young startup from Brussels seems to have a clear view of what their next steps should be. Their participation to Tavola was to scope the market and see if there would be potential for some of their new flavors. The concept is quite tasty, interesting, and trendy as well as it involves a packaging very different than the ones used in the (hot) sauces segment. Also, the company developed different ranges, a traditional mainstream one, which could be rolled out in classic retail shops, and a seasonal range. In the view of the founders, it was clear that at their stage of development, it was best to walk before running and jumping on every store or buyer passing by. I hope to see their concept grow further in the future.

Tavola Tradeshow Salon Food Drink It Fresh Swet