Food fair in Cuba

Marketing companies from two dozen countries opened the Eighth International Fair of Food, Containers, Packing and Graphic Arts (ALIMEXPO) this week in Havana.

Cuba is giving great media hype to this event closely linked to the leisure industry in an effort to offer an assorted menu in which good taste and the preference of visitors coming from everywhere around the globe are the name of the game.

The official agenda includes a lecture on food export sponsored by Japanese company JETRO, bargaining rounds between Rumbos Co.’s recreation and tourism division on one corner, and Gran Caribe, Cubalse, the Ministry of Tourism, CIMEX S.A. and Horizontes Hotels on the other.

Participants will also hold seminars and lectures on the future prospects of food and fishing industries, refrigeration and air-conditioning, containers and packing, and graphic arts.

This year’s Alimexpo tradeshow will host its third Gourmet Show, a meeting in which professionals from cuisine management, the hotel industry and service providers have a chance to flaunt their roots and boast their skills.

During last year’s meeting, participants inked import-export contracts and credit lines for $16 million. The event gathered 156 companies from 14 countries, plus 153 national enterprises in the 2002 edition.