Chinese wasabi among the highlights at London food trade fair

London's Docklands was once one of the busiest ports in the world, with the bustling maritime industry bringing lavish and exotic delights - and prosperity - to Britain via quays and wharves along the River Thames.

Those days are long gone, with the area transformed into a center of high finance. 

Along the vast towers showing off multinational muscle, lies the Exhibition Centre (ExCel), which hosts everything from arms conferences to boat shows.

This week the venue has offered UK wholesalers the chance to discover what's getting taste buds tingling outside the country and introduce it to the British palette.

The International Food and Drink Event 2024 brought wholesalers, restaurants, chefs and importers to London to take stock of the culinary world in 2024.

Among visitors to what is the UK's largest international food exhibition, were representatives from China, looking to get in on the UK's 70-billion-dollar food import market.

‌‌Eric Liu, General Manager of Linyi Yuanyuan Food Co. was there spreading the word for wasabi. While Japan might be known for the condiment most commonly associated with sushi, the ingredients for wasabi comes from Liu's home region of Shandong.

He said: "Wasabi is originally from Japan, but the material for wasabi is from China, so we have the advantage of the material, and we produce the final product of wasabi and we provide it around the world."

Liu added: "I think here the UK market requires top quality products, and market volume is very good, so I feel very confident about the market here."

After Brexit, traders already active in the European Union now need to make an extra effort to forge relationships in the UK, which perhaps explains why so many of them attended.

More than 1,500 companies from over 100 countries joined the Chinese representatives to try to get a bite of the British food and drinks market. Globally, the trade is worth more than 3 trillion dollars a year.

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It's not just food and drink that's on show, but the equipment that makes it too.

There are ovens which use artificial intelligence to cook dinner, a machine that autonomously cuts the meat for a doner kebab, and a smart coffee machine designed for the hotel industry.

The latter was being shown off by ‌Xiaoding Fang, the Sales Manager at Guangzhou-based Jetinno Intelligent Equipment. 

According to Xiaoding: "The coffee culture is developed by our generation, so now it's getting more and more popular. We have more and more coffee shops than the milk tea shops now, so it's a good sign for Chinese coffee culture."

Keeping people fed in Britain relies on overseas trade. As a small island nation, nearly half of all food sold in the UK is imported from overseas. So there are good profits to be made for anyone who manages to grab a slice of the British market.

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