In an increasingly competitive food and beverage industry supply chain, quality and building consumer confidence can make the critical difference between loss of market share or becoming a leading market brand.
"IFEA is ideally positioned to give retail and food service buyers, importers, wholesalers and distributors direct access to hundreds of leading food and drink brands, local producers and leading African brands," says Brad Hook, event director, Montgomery Africa.
"It is a local event, intended to provide visitors with the opportunity to identify new profit-making products and ideas, find ways to give their customers more quality and innovation and get to grips with the latest consumer trends in food and beverage.
"We've positioned the show as a full sensory experience. As much as possible, our strategy is to bring live content and energy to the event. The Skillery features culinary demonstrations from celebrity chefs- visitors can expect some popular food personalities, as well as some fresh talent. The Hub hosts leading experts and thought leaders as they unpack their predictions for the food and beverage industry's future."
The Unilever Masters of Time competition will feature five highly experienced Masters of Time chefs, who will be given the task of each mentoring a chef, sharing personal tips and secrets on the mastery of time in the professional kitchen.
The five protégé chefs will compete against each other in a Time Trials competition where the winner will not only walk away with trade secrets from some of the leading chefs in the South African culinary industry, but also a TAG Heuer watch worth R15,000.
Following this exciting cook-off, the five Masters of Time chefs will compete in their own Time Trials competition on the afternoon of 19 September, to determine and crown the true front-runner worthy of the Unilever Food Solutions Time Trials 2013 title and a cash prize of R20,000.
In addition, five local chefs have been selected by Unilever Food Solutions to champion their dynamic new Masters of Time advertising campaign; these five chefs will be participating in the Time Trials mystery basket cook-off.
In this exciting winner-takes-all competition, Leon Hatton-Jones (Intercontinental OR Tambo), James Khoza (Sandton Convention Centre), Stuart Cason (Radisson Blu Gautrain Hotel), Craig Cormack (Sofia's at Morgenster) and Dion Vengatass (Mount Nelson Hotel) will compete in Masters finale for a grand prize of R20,000.
"We're looking forward to welcoming visitors. We are confident that this exciting, educational and one-of-a-kind show will give each visitor an unsurpassed opportunity to meet leading brands from around the world. From small establishments to major brands and franchises, there's something for everyone at IFEA, bringing together quality and supply chain professionals from the leading food and beverage retailers and producers," concludes Hook.
The IFEA Food Quality & Consumer Trust Conference is aimed at providing food and beverage retailers, producers and processors with best practice in quality assurance and supplier engagement.
Featuring more than 20 top-tier industry experts that cut a broad swathe across the industry, including senior executives from Heinz, Nestlé, Pick n Pay, Parmalat and Spar, the conference will bring together quality and supply chain professionals and focus on how to harness quality and consumer trust as a driver of business excellence.
Conference delegates will be able to benchmark their quality assurance strategy with industry peers from market leading retailers and producers and find out how leading brands are achieving this. Delegates will also learn how to approach compliance as an opportunity for efficiencies rather than and extra cost while keeping up-to-date with technology innovations to enable supply chain security.
For further information, go to www.ifea.co.za
