Milan, 10 May 2019 – Indonesian Trade Promotion Center (ITPC) Milan in collaboration with Trade Attaché and Agriculture Attaché in Rome, coordinated by Economic Affairs of Indonesian Embassy in Rome has participated at TuttoFood Milano World Food Exhibition (TuttoFood) 2019 for the fourth time which took place from 6 to 9 May 2019 in Rho Fiera, Milan, Italy. Indonesian Pavilion came up with a specific theme called “Indonesia – l’arcipelago dei sapori” or Indonesia – the Archipelago of Savours which presented a culinary experience of Indonesian traditional food stall named Warung Angkringan
TuttoFood is the biggest biennial business-to-business (B2B) international exhibition for food and beverage industry in Italy. More than 2,800 companies and institutions participated and the number of visitors reached more than 80,000 people.
In this edition, Indonesian Pavilion located at Hall 1, F10 – G09 brought a unique theme and concept in order to raise the awareness of Italian people about Indonesia’s food and beverage products which already have high quality and meet the requirements to enter the European market. There were five Indonesian companies participating : PT. Indofood CB Sukses Makmur (instant noodles, cassava chips, instant seasoning, and sweet soy sauce); PT. Kaarle Indonesia/Anaia (coconut oil, spices, and organic seasoning); PT. Intrafood Singabera Indonesia (coconut sugar, coconut nectar syrup, tea and tisane, granola, and ginger drinks); PT. Agung Bumi Agro/Ladang Lima (gluten free products : pasta, noodles, biscuits, multi-use flour); and PT. Indraco Group/Supresso (Indonesian specialty coffee, house blend coffee beans, and mono-origin coffee).
“We try to approach the public by offering them free tasting of Indonesian food during lunch time such as nasi goreng, mie goreng, rendang, chicken satay with peanut sauce accompanied by Indonesian coffee. For snack time, we offer the visitors to try our gluten free biscuits or hand-baked artisan granola with ginger drink and tisane”, says Narita Nurindah Hatibie, the Director of ITPC Milan.
All food and beverages distributed at the Indonesian Pavilion were freshly cooked and made in the kitchen inside the pavilion. For this matter, ITPC Milan was collaborating with La Tiara, a group of Indonesian diaspora in Italy that is already certified and licensed to proceed and serve food for public.
The festivity of Indonesian Pavilion at TuttoFood 2019 also attracted several food bloggers to visit and taste Indonesian food. It gave a great social media value in terms of promotion since those bloggers have more than 185,000 followers.
As the teaser of Indonesia’s participation at TuttoFood 2019, ITPC Milan organized a Food Tasting event on 30 April 2019 located at ITPC Milan’s office in Via Vittor Pisani 8, Milan. Six groups of food and travel bloggers that are famous on Instagram and Facebook coming from Milan, Turin, Parma, Verona, and Rome attended this event. The bloggers are Teresa Balzano (@tery-pep), Volgo Sapori (@volgosapori), Soe Cavalca (@ssosoe), Marco & Beatrice (@babbuinoghiotto), Elisabetta Caccamo (@theautumnlady), and Alessia & Eric (@elefanteveg). As the invited guests were the Coordinator of Economic Affairs and Trade Attaché of Indonesian Embassy in Rome. By organizing this event, it is expected that the bloggers are already familiar with the products and could make a nice review to share on their social media.
“The influencers in general are impressed by the look of Indonesian food and they like the taste of our culinary served today which is rich of flavor. We hope that it could increase their curiosity and enthusiasm to know more about Indonesian cuisines and food products”, says Harya K. Sidharta, Coordinator of Economic Affairs.
During TuttoFood, Indonesian Pavilion was visited by several major importers, distributors and retailers of food and beverage products in Italy. According to Sumber Sinabutar, Trade Attaché of Indonesian Embassy in Rome, TuttoFood has a strategic role to introduce Indonesian food products to the consumers, in particular Italian people. “During 4 days of expo, Indonesian Pavilion take a note of some potential transactions valued to US$ 5.2 million. This value is significantly increasing compared to the result of our participation at TuttoFood 2017”, explains Sumber.
Agriculture Attaché of Indonesian Embassy of Rome, Ida Ayu Ratih, was giving her expectation regarding the same exhibition held in Italy. “I hope that those similar exhibitions could be the opportunity to increase the export of Indonesian products, thus Indonesian entrepreneurs should take the benefit, particularly in evaluating the marketing strategy and the quality of their products in order to meet the consumer’s demands and needs”, says Ida.
