Gulfood Highlights

Record participation of 3,800 exhibitors from 88 countries at Gulfood 2012 highlights the show's pivotal role in facilitating trade between suppliers and buyers in this highly lucrative market

The rise of Asian cuisine
Eelco Camminga, vice president Food Solutions -- SAMEP South Africa, Middle East, Pakistan, Unilever Food Solutions
We see, particularly in the UAE market, the rise of Asian cuisine. In fact we recently ran a competition with our operators on menu development with Asian cuisine and sent the prize winners to China to have a look there. We keep looking at those trends as they develop. If local or Arabic cuisine starts developing, we will keep our eyes on that, and try to develop products that make chefs' lives easier for that particular cuisine.
When it comes to packaging, we are certainly a responsible manufacturer and we are constantly looking into reducing our carbon footprint, and are very concerned with sustainability. We are looking at the doubling the size of the organisation, but halving the impact on the environment. And that's a specific drive to take us to 2020.

Marketing has a huge role with so many young consumers
Adel Khorakiwala, CEO - SwitzGroup (Saudi Masterbaker Ltd)
In terms of the industrial bakery snack market, what we have been noticing is that consumers are paying a much higher emphasis on flavours and fillings. They put a lot less attention on the bakery product itself, but more on what is inside the bakery product. We used to sell just standard cupcakes with no fillings, and now we've got a large range of injected cupcakes with jams, chocolates and other kinds of fillings.
What we've been noticing is that marketing is playing a much larger role in creating demand for consumers. A large percentage of the population in the Middle East is below the age of 21 - this is a very young population. We are finding a lot of young consumers being attracted to more colourful, more dynamic kind of packaging. So we've been segmenting our customer segments with different brands. We have a housewife brand, which is far more transparent - housewives like to see the product before they buy it, but in our kid brands, we have completely opaque packaging, very colourful, very bubbly.

Keeping quality at the forefront
M. Salim Pathan, general manager, Qatar Flour Mills Co
We expect to get into countries that we have not exported, so it's been a good year. Basically, the response has been to more affordable purchasing prices of the products. But in our case, we haven't brought our price down, we've tried to give the best quality, and we've sustained our quality, that's why people come back to us. Ours is a very raw materials sort of product, so flavours do not really affect us. Packaging though is being evolved every time and we are looking for further changes. We were into low density plastic, but now we are looking into recyclable paper bags where you can hold the packet. 

Toward healthier, more natural processed foods
Aziz Iraqi, commercial director, Al Islami Foods Co
First is the offer - the widening range from a lot of different companies. Some companies are not strictly focusing on one category; instead they have a wider range of product portfolio. Second, I see that there is more listening to consumers in terms of their needs, the trends, etc., especially in processed foods. We see the trend is to make the food or thNike