May 20-22, 2009 McCormick Place, Chicago

The All Candy Expo was a great show to see.  The show featured manufacturing companies for mostly confectionery products with some participation from snackfood companies.  The snackfoods and confectionery segments are some of the few items that continue to see sales growth despite the economic turmoil.

Some of the highlights were mostly for chocolate products, these included:

1. Higher percentage of cocoa content = dark and darker chocolate
2. Functional inclusions: probiotic, omega oils, antioxidants, fibre
3. Exciting flavours geared for adults: wine flavours, spices
4. Frutis in chocolate: air dried or powders etc.
5. Peanut butter

Most innovative: Le Whif  (Each cylinder contains 1 calorie of chocolate taken in two puffs.    Drawback: plastic packaging and messy when opened. 

Overall, it was a great show but the loot bag was too small to hold all the freebies!  

View from McCormick

Airport

 June 6-10, 2009   – Anaheim Convention Centre

The trip to and back from the IFT was more eventful than the show itself.   It started at the security area of the airport.    People were lined up when I got past customs.    There was a suspected security breach and people had to wait for more than 30 minutes.

The IFT at Anaheim was predicted to have a lower turn-out compared to last year’s show in New Orleans.   The actual show was indeed smaller with fewer booths.   However, it seemed there were more attendees or “walkers” rather than exhibitors.  The booths were also more modest with minimal samples given out.

The themes from the various booths were on antioxidants (yum berry anyone?), the use of fruits (purees, powders, air-dried etc) and nuts -   Natural, natural, natural was still the overall theme!  

The most interesting for me was the booth of Garden Protein International from British Columbia in Canada.   They were selling meat analogues that looked and tasted like chicken!    I thought that they offered something healthy and delicious with a great texture. 

On my trip back, I was bumped off my flight.  Instead of landing at 10 pm that night, I took the red eye and came home at 6 am the following day.