STEP Agriculture/Food Value-Added

Transcription

1 STEP Agriculture/Food Value-Added Canadian Health Food Association (CHFA) Expo East Trade Show Saturday, September 19 & Sunday, September 20, 2015 Toronto, ON TRIP REPORT

2 Notice to Recipient: The attached information is provided by STEP on the express condition that the recipient of such information waives any and all claims of any nature whatsoever (including any claim based in negligence) that it may now or in the future have against STEP or its officers, directors, employees and agents resulting from or in any way connected with its use or reliance on such information. Overview/ Mission Description Canadian Health Food Association s Expo East (CHFA) is Canada s largest conference and trade show for the natural health and organics industry. It s the place to meet the industry s top manufacturers, distributors and brokers, face-to-face. With over 800 exhibits on our 98,000 square-foot show floor has grown a lot over the past three years. This show can be used by STEP members who are either looking to target this segment with their own branded product or is an ideal setting to educate buyers on new and upcoming products from Saskatchewan. Typical buyer attendees include Retail Health Stores, Grocery Stores, Pharmacies, Specialty Stores, On-line Retailers, and Nutrition & Health Care Practitioners. Summarized Agenda The main objectives of CHFA was to launch new products by helping STEP members find new buyers, pick up on competitors offerings and gather market intelligence to help their companies make sound export decisions in this sector. STEP members had the opportunity to have their own booth, co-exhibit under the STEP booth or else walk the show. Another objective of the CHFA program was to assist companies in the development of distribution and market access to the Eastern Canada and United States markets. In addition many of the member s objective was to continue to build a brand presence in these markets. Furthermore, STEP members enjoyed numerous seminars by industry professionals the two days prior to the tradeshow. Results STEP selected space in the food retail area close to many of the distributors' aisles. The entire STEP space was allocated to member s booths (10x20). The entire space was filled with three member companies. The other five attending member companies exhibited in their own 10x10 space. Walk through traffic was fairly steady throughout the show, but due to the increase in exhibitors over the past two years and the size of show floor space, there has been continually reduced traffic. Some STEP members commented that the Expo in Toronto may have become too large and the members still looking for new customers, rather than maintaining brand presence would benefit from exhibiting at smaller trade shows. STEP also provided support to the exhibiting members by covering booths while mission delegates met with customers and distributors at their respective booths. Most of the major distributors in Ontario were present at the show, all of which held large pavilions that featured both products in partnership with the distributors and various marketing personnel. The Expo s exhibitor profile has continued to change with a major trend of more supplement and distribution companies rather than smaller independent companies or retail chains. The large supplement suppliers have pavilions as well as many of the larger national health distributors. For the third year in a row, through STEP s engagement with exhibitors, there has been a noticeable trend that

3 the distributor s pavilions were mostly manned with marketing and sales people rather than procurement and sourcing representatives. Targeting the latter was difficult due to the fact that they are not easily identified and you cannot retrieve the names of representatives walking the show in advance. Furthermore, the show does not hold much capacity on information of exhibitors and specifically their company detail and contact information. Therefore, retrieving information requires meeting companies and searching for specific contacts involved in sourcing and procurement. After the first full day of the trade show STEP members participated in a group, self-hosted dinner at the Montecito Restaurant. This was an opportunity for members to share their experience and network, and was well attended by both STEP members and a potential distributor from Quebec. The results in terms of revenue generated by STEP members resulting from CHFA Expo East will be estimated as follow up with attending companies is conducted. In terms of total number of contacts gained through lead generation collected at Expo East for members exhibiting with STEP and walking the show with a STEP badge is estimated at approximately 40 trade leads generated. Recommendations Overall, the trade show at CHFA Expo East was successful in terms of the meetings and contacts made for our STEP members. These companies can provide the potential for STEP Members to begin business in the market or expand current activities. After speaking with many of the attending members, the general opinion of the show was that it is a good opportunity to build relationships with potential business partners and explore the new up-and-coming products entering the health and natural product industry. In general, the show can provide an overview of the future of the Canadian health and natural product industry. The best method to measure the show s success is by continually checking on the attending members over the next twelve months when potential sales would be realized. This may provide a necessary review of the show and the viability and potential for STEP and its members in continuing to exhibit at CHFA Expo East. Furthermore, the show is continuing to tighten up their guidelines and criteria for exhibiting, plus an increase of costs and requiring written permission in advance to have coexhibitors/sublet booth space. They are also applying additional pressure for all companies that are not CHFA members to join the industry association in advance of exhibiting at one of their trade shows. Any non-chfa member is not allowed to have their own show directory listing. This was a common issue for many STEP members that were not able to have their company s title in the show s directories. Requests from the attending STEP members was to have future missions developing program for further market development activity post show. This could be coordinated through sales calls with some of the smaller independent retailers on the days after the show concludes. In particular, tours and onsite meetings with potential and current distributors in the Toronto region. CHFA does not allow non-member companies or co-exhibitors to be listed in the show directory on their own. They are listed as a group under the headline, Saskatchewan Trade & Export Partnership (STEP). This has been considered a negative by some members to exhibit within STEP s space at the Expo. To create more awareness STEP should continue to place an advertisement in the show directory, and work with CHFA to move the advertisement closer to the front of the directory for the 2015 Expo. As a result of this mission, STEP was able to gather a list of potential buyers and distributors in the Ontario and Quebec markets. These are organizations that are of keen interest to many of STEP s agrivalue small-to-medium size members. Many of these distributors work with both small and large retail chains, with capacity to help STEP members to grow their brand presence in Eastern Canada.

4 Photos Seminar s and Panel Discussions

5 Showcase Shelves Meeting space