The third edition of VIV MEA concluded on a successful note and received great appreciation from the industry
A total of 6,671 professional visitors smoothly made it to the 500 exhibitor booths at ADNEC halls 7 to 10 over the three days of the show. This 3rd edition of VIV MEA thus confirmed the success of 2018 in terms of visitor quantity, despite the limited travelling scenario. At the same time, visitor quality reached even greater results. In fact, 235 industry leaders participated in the event, while one-fourth of the total visitors were C-levels.
Not only that, the high-quality of the visitors is also reflected by the rest of the profiles – 26% of the visitors were companies GMs or CEOs (one-fourth of the total), 15% were marketing and sales managers or representatives, veterinarians counted for a good 10%, distributors and dealers participated with a 8%, farm owners were 7% of the total visiting profiles, 5% were technical managers, engineers, or technician and 4% were pure buyers, purchase or procurement managers.
Sherine Edward Bassili, Egypt local agent for Giordano Poultry Plast, said, “We are very happy with our participation in the show. Being the first show after COVID-19, it’s good to see the industry in person again. We had visitors from Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan and the UAE, exactly our target regions. We observed that the visitors now are even more serious to do business than in 2018.”
Exhibitor presence and broad-spectrum of products
At least 66% of the visitors came back to the exhibition halls for more than one day. This speaks volumes about the range of products and brands available onsite and about the seriousness of the participants in getting into detailed conversations with the suppliers. The re-visit on more than one day increased by +3.3%, compared to the last edition, reflecting both the high-quality of exhibitors and the size of the show that required more than a day to cover it.
The booths at VIV MEA 2021 were continuously busy from day one to day two and the conversations proceeded far into the closing time on the third day. Business finally happened face-to-face with suppliers meeting their own agents after a long time, as Blueline Group director, Afthar Hussain, said, “We had the pleasure to meet again our distributors after a very long time.”
Innovations were also on display, such as the new multi-spectrum lightning concept introduced to the market at VIV MEA 2021 by Once Inc. “Multi-spectrum lightning already has been around for some time, but the very innovative implementation of the ND Dome is that it is working with light recipes. Farmers can set the start and end-date of their cycle in a dedicated app, using a smart device like a tablet or a phone,” said Sebastian Haskamp of Once Inc.
“Being in COVID-19 times, it’s very good to see the same number of visitors as in 2018. We’ve spoken to people from Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, Lebanon and the Emirates, all serious conversations with actual investment plans behind them,” he added.
Exhibitors participated from 51 countries. Country pavilions at VIV MEA 2021 were the USA Pavilion, the India Pavilion, the Korea Pavilion and the France Pavilion.
A regional hub for the feed-to-food industry
The UAE topped the list with 29% of all the visitors coming from the country itself. Importantly, the majority of the visitors came from the rest of the world, with the GCC countries in the lead. At least 71% of the visitors in fact came from outside of the hosting country. This makes VIV MEA a truly international show and a recognised hub for the whole Middle East and Africa. Specifically, the top four visiting world regions were the Middle East with 70% of the visitors, Asia with 14%, Western Europe with 8% and Africa with 5%. Top countries represented by the visitors were UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia (the country of honour for this edition), Iraq, Pakistan, Jordan, Bangladesh, Iran, India, Oman, The Netherlands, Turkey, Israel, Sudan, Germany, Kuwait and Lebanon. The total number of visiting countries was 90.
Important industry leaders and delegations were present at the show. A delegation of Abu Dhabi officials did a tour of the show floor on the first morning to meet-and-greet with worldwide market leaders and catch up on new ideas for sustainability.
Director general Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority, H.E. Saeed Al-Bahri Salem Al-Ameri, and Minister of Climate Change and Environment, Mariam Almheiri, visited VIV MEA accompanied by H.E. Eng Jamal Salem Al Dhaheri, CEO of Silal Food and Technology; H.E. Humaid Matar Al Dhaheri, CEO of ADNEC Group and Rashed Bin Rasas Al Mansory from ADAFCA.
Louis Lahoud, director general of the Ministry of Agriculture in Lebanon and a delegation joined on the third day, while the delegation of Progressive Dairy Farmers Association from India coloured the show with their presence on day one.
Conferences highlights: New partnerships and new formats
For the first time FAVA, the Federation of Asian Veterinary Association in association with EVA and the Emirates Veterinary Association, held an informative seminar at VIV MEA.
A new conference format was introduced this year by Watt Global Media, MEAP – the Middle East Agrifood Publishers, and VIV into the market. The Poultry Marketing Roundtable, PMRT gathered more than 80 major poultry producers of the Arab World, which accounts for more than 35% of the production in the MeNa region. The highly interactive PMRT concept managed to keep the attention of these market leaders for three hours between onsite presentations, online contributions and open table discussions.
“We had well attended aquatic events where speakers discussed several new technologies related to aqua feed. Topics covered were raw material, how to set up an aqua feed plant, grinding of raw material, extrusion of aqua feed and sustainability and some talks related to fish health. Participants asked questions and very well engaged with speakers.” said Tuti Tan, accounts manager at Perendale Publishers Ltd, about the Aquatic MEA program.
A total of 20 conference sessions were offered to VIV MEA attendees, with more than 80 speakers sharing their knowledge to the region.
“After a very good VIV MEA, we are now ready to replicate the experience in Europe, with the upcoming VIV Europe event in 2022. For the organisation of VIV MEA I am grateful for the support in hosting and sharing information we received from the Governments of the Unites Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and ADNEC Exhibition Centre. We look forward to a good collaboration for the next edition as well,” said Renate Wiendels, senior project manager of VNU Europe.