Gulfood Manufacturing, the largest food and beverage processing and packaging show for the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia (MEASA), opened on Sunday at the Dubai World Trade Centre.
The show is geared toward driving smart innovations in food manufacturing and reigniting live, face-to-face big business opportunities over the next three days, an official statement said.
The food industry is now among the top three contributors to the UAE economy. The event will address the sector’s sustainable packaging, automation, and global F&B supply chain dilemmas, the statement said.
Highlights on day one included the opening of the FoodTech Summit and a keynote panel discussion titled: ‘In conversation with manufacturing leaders’ and more.
Gulfood Manufacturing’s exhibitor line-up includes many of the world’s leading manufacturing innovators and global food processing and packaging players who are unveiling sector-breaking production advancements, the statement said.
The event Gulfood Manufacturing features six interdependent pillars: Supply Chain Solutions, Ingredients, Printing & Labeling, Processing, Packaging as well as Automation and Control.
Abdullah bin Touq Al Marri, Minister of Economy, who opened Gulfood Manufacturing, said the UAE’s trade in food commodities contributed more than seven percent of the country’s GDP for 2020, and more than 8.4 percent of the non-oil GDP for the same year at the current prices.
Over the past five years, from 2016 to 2020, the volume of the UAE’s trade in food commodities grew by 21 percent with a cumulative volume of AED444 billion.
During 2020, despite the repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic on food and beverage trade in particular, the country achieved three percent growth in its food and beverage exports compared with 2019. In the first half of 2021, the country’s trade of food commodities grew nine percent compared with the period last year, the statement said.