An All You Can Eat Buyer's Buffet

The government-backed Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) recently combined three leading food-related trade shows, Food Taipei 2005, FoodTech Taipei 2005, and Taipei Pack 2005, to create a veritable industry supermarket. The show kicked off its four-day run on June 16 at the Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC).

The event attracted 747 exhibitors from Taiwan and abroad, with 2, 169 booths blanketing the first and second floors of TWTC Exhibition Hall 1 and Hall 3. This year's show brought together a record 32 national pavilions, as well as two brand-new sections-"A Taste of Cuisine" and "A Taste of Taiwan Wine."

Exhibits at Food Taipei ranged from alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, condiments, meat products, frozen foods, and biscuits to confections, health food, fruit and vegetables, food ingredients and additives, dairy products, cereals, and tableware.

At FoodTech, exhibitors touted bakery machinery, noodle making equipment, Chinese-food making machines, bakery mixers, rice-processing machines, fish and meat processing machines, equipment for production of various snack foods, baking ovens, and dryers.

Major exhibits at Taipei Pack included packaging materials (plastic materials, special multi-layer films, polypropylene and polyethylene plastic bag sealing tapes, stretched films, food wrap cling films, shrinkable polyvinyl chloride tubes, carton staplers, etc.) and packaging machinery (handheld sealers, gluing machines, printing machines, plastic processing machines, laminating machines, material handling machines, label making machines, automatic weighing and packing machines, automated storage and retrieval systems, powder filling/packing machines, etc.)

Big Turnout

The four-day exhibition attracted 41, 323 visitors from the food marketing, packaging and logistics fields. Foreign visitors accounted for 3, 150 of the total, up 30% from the preceding session held last years. Top-five visiting contingents were, in descending order, from Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the United States, and mainland China.

Taiwan occupies a unique position in the world food industry, at the cultural confluence of East and West, where ancient recipes are updated with improved ingredients, attractive packaging, and innovative research and development enables tasty breakthroughs with new flavors, superior hygienic standards, quality control, and flexibility. Taiwan is famous for an outstanding capacity for combining exciting innovation with surprising value. From Taiwan fruits to frozen tilapia slices, processed snacks to frozen instant food, buyers worldwide look to Taiwan for superior selection and quality.

Continuously enhancing its reputation as one of Asia's most exciting and vital trade shows, Food Taipei blends the best of the world's food industry into one big banquet. Heading the menu is the Taiwan Pavilion at the show, the one-stop sourcing site for specialty products, fruits and vegetables, seafood, livestock products and certified quality food.

Other national pavilions at Food Taipei were organized by the U.S., Japan, Korea, Spain, Canada, Africa, Chile, France, Denmark, Austria, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Malaysia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. There was also a Central America pavilion.

The Taiwan pavilion, comprised of 146 booths, was divided into seven exhibition areas, including areas highlighting rice, tea, fresh fruit and vegetable, livestock products, seafood, prepared food, and forestry products.

The state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation showcased its latest agricultural and biotech products, which have expanded far beyond the company's core operation of sugar production in recent years. A new series of health drinks was one of the keynote products at the Taiwan Sugar display.

The company also exhibited skincare and health products, such as chicken essence, frozen pork, edible oil, natural lingzhi, and pollen.

Japanese pavilion organizer, JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization), said its visiting contingent held 1, 833 trade talks with domestic suppliers in the three days before the show kicked off and another 43 talks at the event. JETRO estimated another 314 trade talks would be launched over the next six months. Seeing the effectiveness of participating in the show, the Japanese pavilion organizer noted it would expand the scale of its delegation next year.

Food Machinery

This year 15 companies spotlighted new machines at 538 booths during FoodTech Taipei. Highlighted products included high-precision machinery from Chin Yang Fa Mechanical Engineering Co., a pioneer in food processing machinery. Another supplier, Yuan-Chen Machine Co., showed off extractive and granulation equipment to packaging machinery displayed the most sophisticated models of pharmaceutical whole-plant equipment.

Automatic encrusting and forming machines made by ANKO Food Machine Co., Ltd. Offered the traders some of the most compact, reasonably priced and easily maintained processing machinery. Chin Fa Mechanic Ltd. Displayed the latest of its self-developed auto-tunnel bakery ovens.

Jan Jaih Enterprise Co., Ltd. Displayed a space-saving micro-computer steam boiler. The boiler is very economically priced and made with durable carbon steel tubing. It also has a unique fin slice design to upgrade heat transmitting efficiency.

The boiler has a boiling efficiency of over 85% due to a finely calibrated air-fuel ratio. The unit's low-pressure combustion chamber saves power and lower noise, and the boiler can reach preset pressure within three to five minutes after powering on, reducing fuel waste and waiting time.

Benison & Co.pany Ltd., one of Taiwan's leading food-equipment producers, showcased an auto side-sealing machine with human-machine interface (HMI) control system for easy operation. The machine has an alarm system that activates and shuts down the machine when it detects a malfunction, such as interruption of in-feed materials and wastage overflow.

The machine also has an easy-to-install rack for package film, frames and parts constructed with extruded aluminum, alloy metal material and stainless steel. The design and construction meet international safety standards. The company also provides a liability insurance policy.

A professional manufacturer of bakery machinery, Chanmag Bakery Machine Co., Ltd. Showcased a series of newly developed products at the FoodTech showground, including a Chinese food making machine, bakery mixer, encrusting machine, frying machine, ice making machine, and refrigerating cabinet.

The company was founded in 1979 as a subcontractor for mechanical engineering projects. Four years later the company merged with Chian Puu Machinery Co. and began developing food-processing machines.

Over the past several years Chanmag has won many awards in Taiwan and abroad for its innovative machines. The company says it is capable of offering whole-plant production equipment, including toast, cake, biscuit, rusk, wheat bread/steamed bread, and wheat sheet lines.

The company says it is a frequent exhibitor at FoodTech as the exhibition has helped it reach many foreign customers every year. The company says that it has linked up with many potential new customers from downstream food processors attending Food Taipei.

Taipei Pack grouped together 34 exhibitors with 101 booths. There was the newly developed copying-preventing container series developed by Supreme Technic Package Co., which brings into play their advanced in-mold labeling technique. Supreme's award-winning automatic turnkey EMD equipment also caught the attention of many buyers.

Chi Mei Enterprise Co., Ltd., a machinery subsidiary of the brilliant Chi Mei Group, displayed a new product series--over-wrapping machine which is suitable for outer over-wrapping of diskettes, CD/DVD (compact disk/digital versatile disk) jewel cases, cassette tape cases, playing cards, cigarette boxes, cosmetic boxes, and drug boxes. It is equipped with a stacker to reduce labor input and increase output.

The machine can handle several types of wrapping material, including cellophane, KOP, BOPP, OPP and heat-sealing film or paper.

Jih Cheng Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Showcased an automatic powder filling and cap sealing machine at the Taipei Pack venue. The machine is mainly used in small volume liquid-packing applications.

The unit is equipped with a programmable logic controller and other photoelectric sensor controls to handle filling, plug insertion and cap sealing operations in compliance with Taiwan's GMP (good manufacturing practice) requirements. It is suitable for eye drops, small-volume liquid injections, cosmetics and volatile oil packing applications.

TAITRA noted the next three-in-one Food Show is scheduled to be launched June 21-24, 2006, also at the TWTC.