Balance Sheet 2008

Alimentaria 2008 surpasses the best edition in its history, with near 158,000 professional visitors

Alimentaria 2008 closed its doors on 14 March with the best figures in its history, both in terms of the number of occupied square metres (131,000) and of professional visitors (157,632) and participating companies (4,806). These data consolidate the Spanish exhibition in the second position in the world ranking and serve as a driving force to continue growing in the next edition, scheduled for 2010.

158,000 professionals -3,000 more than expected- visited Alimentaria during a frantic week of exhibition activity in Barcelona. There was a significant increase in the number of visitors from 155 countries –about 33,000 professionals-. Alimentaria thus consolidates itself as the Spanish exhibition with the greatest number of international participants and one of the top-ranking in the world.

International exhibitors

Close to 5,000 leading companies in the manufacturing and distribution of food and drink products from 70 countries showed their offer in Barcelona, transforming the city into the world’s food capital for a week.

Alimentaria 2008 strengthens its position as an international business centre: 30 % of the exhibiting companies, about 1,500 firms, came from abroad. Moreover, the number of international visitors –33,000 professionals- follows an increasing trend, almost one of every 5 buyers is from outside Spain.

Almost all the countries which participated in previous editions did so again in March, 2008. France, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Austria, Greece, Morocco, Tunisia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the U.S., Peru, Venezuela, China and the Ukraine are some of the regular participants which, moreover, have participated with their own pavilion.

New participants

New participants came from countries such as Bulgary, Hungary, Panamá, Cyprus and Egypt. In addition, Hungary, Egypt and with the support of AECI (Spanish International Co-Operation Agency), Central American countries such as Costa Rica, Honduras or Guatemala, were present at Alimentaria.

The Netherlands, Portugal, Denmark, Russia, Cyprus, Malaysia, Indonesia, Monaco, Israel, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Egypt, Paraguay, India and Sri Lanka also attended Alimentaria 2008.