DAVAO City remained as the most successful venue for regional show of World Food Expo (Wofex), an official said.
Joel Pascual, president of PEPGroup, the organizer of Wofex, told reporters at the sidelines of the Wofex Mindanao opening yesterday at the SMX Convention Center that the exhibitors who intend to join the region’s largest food show every year is growing.
“This year is the biggest so far because if you go inside (the exhibit area) the convention center is full, we have spaces before that used to be empty but now there are booths already,” he said, adding that this is due to the big demand of food players who intend to join the expo.
For its 11th year, Wofex-Davao is 100 percent occupied.
“We have some 120 participating exhibitors this year,” Pascual said.
He emphasized that this is because a lot of players now believe that a surge of growth will spur in this part of the country especially the next President will hail from Davao City.
The organizers are positive that the event will draw more visitors as compared to last year at 7,000 visitors. Pascual said that they are eyeing some 10 to 15 percent growth in terms of visitors for this year.
When asked about the total generated revenue, Pascual refused to divulge as they usually did not measure monitor the sales of its participating distributors for their regional shows.
“But from the fact that exhibitors always return and some of them got bigger booth we would like to believe that they are making money out of this expo. If we have a return client it means they are happy and productive,” he said.
Bulk of the estimated 120 exhibitors is Wofex’s return clients.
Wofex, the biggest food show in the country is the most comprehensive expo in the Philippines as it offers a complete line-up from the food equipment, ingredients, packaging to processed food.
For this year, Wofex features for the first time, a US pavilion wherein some 12 exhibitors will serve as US representatives. The organizers also brought the WofexUniversity for a series of lectures and seminars.
“Almost all of them (exhibitors) will most likely open a branch here, if they see that there is a good market in Davao City,” he said.
Wilson Velena, sales director of Selbourne, a chocolate product, in a separate interview said that their participation in Wofex was to promote their product in Davao and to serve its potential direct clients and buyers.
“We are a regular exhibitor in Wofex, an every year we really observed that it is growing especially when we based it in sales,” he said adding that annually their sales in the expo grew to some 10 to 20 percent.
For this year, the exhibitors are: Tupperware, Saji, Pampanga’s Best, San Neng Bake Ware, KLG Foodservice Bakersfield, Buyerslink Dist., Inc, Euroblade, Vesmach, Allpack Inc. First Pinnacle Trading, Technolux, Blugre, Apo ni Lola and Cacao de Davao, among others.