Alimentaria, the International Food and Beverages Exhibition, is once again preparing to make Barcelona the world's food and beverage capital. The event will be held March 22-26, 2010, at Fira de Barcelona's Gran Vía venue. The 18th annual Alimentaria will concentrate all of its offerings and activities in the venue's pavilions, a response to "repeated requests from exhibitors and visitors, and taking a realistic approach to the current economic situation," explains J. Antonio Valls, exhibition director and deputy managing director of the organizer, Alimentaria Exhibitions.

The main aim of concentrating the exhibition in a single site is to "maintain and even increase" the number of participating companies, forcing them to reflect on their participation, adapting their needs to the current economic situation.

As a result, the new location will encourage the participation of companies by offering smaller stands. According to forecasts from the organizers, close to 5,000 companies will occupy around 94,500 square meters of exhibition space, with an additional area dedicated to the many activities that provide the show's leisure and educational counterpoint. In total, 15,000 square meters of the 94,500 square meters of net area occupied by Alimentaria 2010 will be reserved for exhibitors from other countries, 2 percent more than at the trade show's last edition in 2008.

In an effort to build international participation, show organizers are taking an active role in the FIAB's (Spanish acronym for the Spanish Food and Drink Industry Federation) International Promotion Conference, which has already made stops in Ireland, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Dubai, with upcoming events planned in Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Peru.

Asia continues to be a successful marketplace for Spanish food and beverage company expansion. Alimentaria has also actively promoted itself at China Food & Hotel in Shanghai and Foodex in Tokyo. One result of this is the agreement with the Japan Wine & Spirits Importers Association to promote Intervin, Alimentaria's wine and spirits show, among distributors and importers in that country.

Educational and leisure options will fill every corner of Alimentaria 2010. New features linked to emerging sectors such as agro-tourism and classic options such as BCNVanguardia, the Barcelona International Gastronomy Conference; Vinorum; and the International Conference on the Mediterranean Diet will once again be a focal point for the sector.

Food and Beverages are Expanding at the Height of the Crisis
Alimentaria enjoys the privilege of representing an industry that continues to grow at the height of the crisis. The main economic figures for 2008 put the food and beverage industry at the forefront of Spanish industry as a whole, with 17 percent of industrial GDP and 7 percent of Spain's GDP; 2008 net sales for the sector totalled 83,204 million euros. The figures for 2008 were positive not only in terms of production, but also for jobs and foreign trade. The sector's coverage rate increased an energetic 5.13 points over 2008, exceeding the rate for the Spanish economy by 35 points.

And so the Spanish food and beverage industry continues to show its strength as the country's leading industrial sector, positioning itself as a motor for change in the Spanish economy. The figures were positive not only in terms of production, but also for jobs. The average number of people employed by the sector last year was 502,150, indicating that the sector did not lose jobs, but rather created them, 2.99 percent more than the previous year, to be specific. These figures are from the 2008 Economic Report by the Spanish Food and Drink Industry Federation (FIAB in its Spanish acronym).