Saudi Arabia: KSA’s first F&B show a gateway to $70bn market

Saudi flagSaudi Arabia’s first international F&B trade show will provide a gateway to the $70bn market opportunity, attracting more than 20,000 industry professionals from the MENA region.

Food sales in the Kingdom account for around half of the domestic retail market and are expected to be worth almost $70bn by 2016, with food consumption growing at a CAGR of 2.6% from 2012 to 2017.

Despite being the largest F&B market and producer in the GCC with 74.1% of total production, the Kingdom imports more than $14.2bn worth of food and beverage products each year to meet its consumption demands. According to BMI’s recent Q1 2013 report this will rise to $35.2bn by 2020. According to Alpen Capital, Saudi Arabia is the region’s biggest food consumer and will account for 60% of total consumption by 2017.

Foodex Saudi is expected to attract more than 20,000 visitors and buyers from across the industry including fast food outlets, restaurants, hotels, wholesalers, grocery stores, hypermarkets and HNWIs.

Reen Sunaidi Exhibitions group exhibition director Simon Blazeby said: “Foodex Saudi is the only exhibition dedicated to the food and beverage industry in the Kingdom. Our objective is to encourage new import relationships, as well as support the continued development of the Saudi food distribution, retail and service sectors.”