Fine Food Australia returns to Sydney for 2019 show

MORE THAN 23,000 INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS are expected to visit this year’s Fine Food Australia trade show, to be held at the Sydney ICC from Monday 9 to Thursday 12 September.

The four-day ideas and innovation fest is set to feature eight sectors encompassing all the latest in food and speciality, catering and hospitality equipment, drinks, bakery equipment and ingredients, healthy living, retail technology, dairy and packaging.

Siobhan Rocks, Marketing Portfolio Manager, Food for the show, says the program of events has been designed with foodservice end-users such as chefs, restaurateurs and business owners foremost in mind.

“We’re updating all our features this year to be more interactive, with live cooking demonstrations so chefs can get a firsthand, realtime look at how to get the most out of both ingredients and equipment,” Siobhan explains.

Competitions, masterclasses and special events are always a key attraction of Fine Food and this year there will be 19 of them, including the Nestle Golden Chef’s Hat, the Australian Culinary Challenge, the Great Aussie Pie and Sausage Roll Competition and more, including the Women in Foodservice Charity Event. A key speaker at the latter will be Janelle Bloom, one of the original chefs who inspired viewers on Channel 10’s Ready Steady Cook for more than 10 years and a food stylist and author in her own right.

A new feature is the Talking Trends stage, which is being undertaken in cooperation with market research specialist Food Industry Foresight and will examine emerging industry trends with particular emphasis on the role that technology, such as robotics and automation, is set to play in the future of the industry.

There will also be an Innovations in Patisserie stage sponsored by Callebaut and featuring appearances from leading pastry chefs, demonstrations of new techniques on Van Rooy equipment and expert advice.

New for 2019 are the Demo Kitchens which are set to take the demonstration of new dishes with exhibitor ingredients to the next level. Chefs advising on these include Tawnya Bahr, Adam Moore, Paul Rifkin, Nick Whitehouse, Amanda Fuller and Andre Kropp.

There’s also a Café Stage and a Talking Shop stage featuring chefs and business owners providing realworld business advice and inspirational stories from an ‘at the

coalface’ perspective, as well as discussions around some hard-hitting subjects like mental health awareness.

Attendees will have the opportunity to attend masterclasses on chocolate and sugar sculpture, pastillage for cake decorating, and much more. An Innovations in the Kitchen Stage will feature two working kitchens – one specifically aimed at chefs and showcasing new products, and the other focused on owner/managers and looking at improving working efficiencies.

And with the growing awareness around the importance of providing texture modified foods within health and aged care, Fine Food Australia will also include a one-day education session on the essentials of the international dysphagia diet standardisation initiative (IDDSI). This will include a practical workshop, demonstration and networking session to help attendees understand and implement the new classification system which will be used across all foodservice businesses supporting aged care, and community and hospital groups.

Registration for Fine Food Australia 2019 opens in less than a month, and the organisers are expecting more visitors to Sydney this year than ever before. “We alternate the show between Sydney and Melbourne and usually Melbourne attracts a bigger crowd, but this year interest has been very strong and we’re expecting a comparable turnout for Sydney,” Siobhan tells us.

You can find more details on this year’s upcoming show at www.finefoodaustralia.com.au