Organized by Hyve Group at TÜYAP, WorldFood Istanbul International Food Products and Technologies Fair broke new ground in its 30th year and hosted 9 visitors on its first day.
WorldFood Istanbul 2022; 77 from 600 countries, mainly from important regions such as Middle East and North African countries (MENA), Balkan countries, CIS countries, South and North American countries, Southeast Asia, within the framework of the strong cooperation with İHBİR and the Buyer Delegation Program, which plays a very active role in exports. It hosts more than XNUMX invited purchasing professionals in Istanbul.
Bringing together a wide range of products, including exhibitors and products from all areas of the food industry, with both buyers and visitors, the fair offers new cooperation agreements opportunities to nearly 25 exhibitors from 800 countries. WorldFood Istanbul is expected to create a business volume of 1 billion euros this year.
Announcing Turkey's food and gastronomy culture to the world, International Food Products Technologies Fair – WorldFood Istanbul continued to take the pulse of the industry with interesting panels on its second day.
“The Driving Force of the Food Industry: Entrepreneurs”
WorldFood Istanbul, which is the "Meeting of the Food World in Turkey" and has led the exhibition of the latest products, services and technologies in the Turkish food industry, is leading the change and development in the sector with its conference program as well as sessions.
In the last session of the second day, in the panel titled “Drivers of the Food Industry: Entrepreneurship, Social Benefit and Innovation”, Topraktan.co Founder Gülşah Seyhan, Hepsiburada Commercial and Social Projects Coorinator Duygu Aktaş and Migros Ticaret A.Ş. Marketing Business Development & “Only in Migros” Director Sena Erol Özdemir shared their corporate visions on the support they give to entrepreneurs under the moderation of Newspaper Oxygen Writer Bahar Akıncı.
Gülşah Seyhan, Founder of Topraktan.co, gave information to the audience about the EWA Program and said, “The EWA Program is a program designed to accelerate the ideas and businesses of food and agricultural entrepreneurs in their entrepreneurial journey. It is an acceleration program for entrepreneurs working on today's and future technologies in agriculture and food, which includes innovation at its core. used the phrase.
Seyhan stated that the 2020-2021-2022 women entrepreneurs of the “Empowering Women in Agrifood – EWA” program took part in WorldFood Istanbul and gave information about the entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Noting that they are the first e-commerce platform that supports women entrepreneurs, Hepsiburada Commercial and Social Projects Coordinator Duygu Aktaş said, “Our program, which we started in May 2017, brought together more than 32 thousand women with e-commerce today. In addition, more than 132 women's cooperatives met with e-commerce for the first time and became digital thanks to Hepsiburada today. With this project we have done for women, we have become a signatory of the United Nations Development Goals and the United Nations WEBS.” said.
Explaining the program from HepsiTürkiye, which was launched in July 2021, Aktaş said, “We have enabled the operators, SMEs, women's cooperatives that produce and sell their products in our country, to 81 and 971 districts, with one click, and enable them to benefit from the marketing power and promotion power of Hepsiburada.” used his statements.
Introducing the M Life and Anadolu Tastes brands, Migros Ticaret A.Ş. Marketing Business Development and “Only at Migros” Director Sena Erol Özdemir said, “M Life and Anadolu Tastes are our own branded products, products that we produce with a very high quality support. Anadolu Tastes, on the other hand, is a brand that we launched in 2014 and worked hard on. Anatolia is a very dense cultural treasure. This treasure shows itself mostly in the rich culinary culture of Anatolia. So we embarked on a journey to find these products, to revive our lost values, to find those lost flavors, to find the masters, to find the seeds of ancestry.” he said.
Stating that they work in many different areas in terms of social benefit and sustainability, Erol Özdemir said, “Agricultural sustainability is very valuable to us, and so are women. When we write social responsibility titles, we write agriculture and women first. The combination of these two is much more motivating. Together with KAGIDER, we implemented the women entrepreneur support program in agriculture.” used the phrase.
Gastronomy tourism experts explained, drew attention to sustainability
Within the scope of "Interview with Gastronomy Tourism Experts" held on the third day of the fair, under the management of Gastronomic Tourism Association President Gürkan Boztepe, Bursa Uludağ University Teaching and Environmental Engineer Assoc. Dr. Efsun Dindar and Chef, Cookbook Writer and Menu Consultant Jale Balcı organized an experience-oriented Special Fair Tour with a limited number of visitors.
Balcı drew attention to the importance of sustainable access to food and underlined that having good food begins with demand. Emphasizing that what is offered will change with the change of people's demands and perspectives, Balcı continued his words as follows:
“There is a problem in maintaining the culture. Because we forget the woman. In fact, it is women who will keep us afloat. It is women who cook at home. If you want our culture to continue, I strongly suggest you support women's cooperatives; get their products. Restaurants or hotels need to move forward with the same approach.”
“The online space kept SMEs alive”
The last session of the day titled “Meet the Women Entrepreneurs Making Change in Food Technology and Agriculture” was held under the management of Cansu Canan Özgen with the participation of CarrefourSA Category Deputy General Manager Murat Dinçer and Alibaba.com Turkey Marketing and Customer Satisfaction Manager Sinem Salihoğlu.
Stating that not only the pandemic but also the new normal has many benefits to human life, and that the transformation of life with permanent effects has transformed commerce, Salihoğlu said, “The year 2021 was a very difficult year for trade. Globally, there were breaks in the supply chain. There are two main issues in medium and high scale investments today; Logistics costs and inflation, which we are also struggling with. Today, b2b commerce has a volume of 14,9 billion dollars. For comparison, it's an industry 5 times larger than the retail side. With B2b, more SMEs are turning to online; They are trying to open their own stores and continue on their way by using their websites.” he said.
Drawing attention to a global study conducted by Visa, Salihoğlu said that when asked how SMEs survived the pandemic, 52 percent of the participants said that online shopping constituted a large share in this process. Salihoğlu continued his words as follows:
“90 percent stated that the only reason they stay afloat is because they have an online presence. It really had a huge impact on the transformation. SMEs started to create a new transformation for themselves by blending the online and offline approach. I think this is the beginning of a very important trend. E-commerce sites and online platforms like us provide many advantages in order to reach many buyers and sellers around the world.”
The importance of online in CarrefourSA's post-pandemic customer equation
CarrefourSA Category Deputy General Manager Dinçer, who took the floor afterwards, stated that the excessive demands together with the pandemic allowed them to see how much their supply chains could meet the demands. Dinçer continued his words as follows:
“The changing consumer balances and the events in the supply chain during the pandemic period actually enabled the supply chain to identify development areas. Trouble at that time was a common issue for retailers around the world. Although the customer could not come to the market, he wanted to reach the product he wanted online. Like everyone else, we stumbled at the beginning. We have created a formula to increase capacity. We tried to group the things that the customer needs more. We could not provide 100 varieties continuously, but we kept 10 varieties available continuously. As such, customers wanted to buy basic needs and when they saw that it was accessible, they continued to stay indoors. We have worked to increase the number. Everyone's sales increased during that period.”
Stating that after the pandemic, the constant availability of basic foods and the sustainability of the service they provide to their customers resulted in positive feedback, thus making them happy, Dinçer said, “The numbers showed us that when we look at the sector in the post-pandemic period, it is around 30 to 35 percent on average. There is a customer return. Because the pandemic was over. However, for us, this figure remained at 12 percent. After the pandemic, we entered a faster growth process.” he added.
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