Food and Beverage (FAB) West Africa show begins today and ends on June 15, at the Landmark Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos. Jamie Hill speaks with Godstime Madojemu about the event.
What are your plans for this year’s Food and Beverage West Africa (FABWA) show?
I am delighted to announce that this year’s Food and Beverage West Africa will officially be Africa’s largest dedicated food and beverage trade show, we will be hosting over 300 exhibitors from across five continents and we will be expanding the show from two halls into four halls. By doing so, we will become Nigeria’s first ever four hall exhibition which is something that we are very proud of. I would also like to say a huge thank you to the entire team at the Landmark Centre, for meeting our answering our request for additional capacity to meet demand for exhibition space. They have managed to build a fourth hall in a very short period, which is a fantastic achievement by them.

This will be the fourth edition of FAB West Africa since its launch in 2018. Since then the exhibition really has cemented itself as the place for the West African food and beverage exhibition to come together and do business. We will host over 5,000 trade professionals at this year’s exhibition and we invite any food professionals, enthusiasts or investors to please come along this year. It is absolutely free to visit providing that you pre-register your attendance first at www.fab-westafrica.com/pre-register.

This year’s exhibition will see country pavilions onsite from Indonesia, Dubai, Russia, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey and Tunisia – all of which have been organised by Government bodies in their respective countries showing the increasing attractiveness of the Nigerian, and wider West African, markets from international businesses.

In short this exhibition is one that quite simply cannot be missed, if you want to grow your food and beverage business, seek new investment, set up a business in F&B, increase manufacturing capabilities, or quite simply try food samples from around the world then you have to be onsite.

The show was launched in 2018. What has the journey been like these past years?
The journey has certainly been one full of challenges, with the pandemic being the major hurdle we have faced since then. However, I feel that every challenge presents itself as an opportunity. It was a challenge to keep the business afloat when coming together and international travel was essentially outlawed and as a business B-to-B Events company, we had to make some incredibly difficult decisions to survive and get through the pandemic. In fact, we were the first international exhibition to take place post pandemic in September 2021 – which was probably the most difficult, yet rewarding, event that I have ever hosted.

I always believed that once the pandemic passed that things would bounce back with more demand for meeting up face to face and at exhibition, and fortunately I was correct. We had numerous companies looking to partner with us to host ‘virtual exhibitions’ but we stuck with our principles and did not pivot into a format that we did not believe in, a decision which I think was critical to our success post pandemic. If we do not believe something will work, we will not risk our clients, time and investment on this. I believe that it is these principles that have seen BtoB Events Ltd become the proud owner of Nigeria’s largest portfolio of exhibitions since our inception in 2018.

We have new launches planned for 2024 and are very excited to see the progress Nigeria makes under its new Government moving forward.
How has the show benefitted the West Africa food and beverage market, especially Nigeria? Also, what should stakeholders expect from this year’s event?
The exhibition has huge benefits to the Nigerian F&B market, bringing together manufacturers, suppliers, distributors and everyone else from the value chain. It enables new technologies to enter the market that can reduce manufacturing costs, or production times, which is critical in achieving a competitive advantage in such a fast paced industry, like the F&B industry.

It is well documented that Nigeria needs to become less reliant on importation of food, but this process is not one that can be rushed to ensure that food scarcity does not increase. So whilst a number of our exhibitors are looking to export their products into Nigeria, our focus as an exhibition is to highlight the benefits of expanding operations into Nigeria. Once companies can see the opportunities that the market offers here, we are confident that they would want to invest more to ensure trade in Nigeria becomes cheaper and more cost effective and this can be achieved initially through contract manufacturing and from there setting up their own manufacturing and distributions here on Nigerian soil.

I truly believe that Food and Beverage West Africa is opening the eyes of international F&B companies to Nigeria and the opportunities that the Nigerian market brings.
There is also the Government to Government (G2G) level meetings that will take place at FAB West Africa, which have the opportunity to make big impacts very quickly when concluding large scale agreements between countries.

Exhibitions are very simple, they bring people together under one roof for a certain period of time. They come together to do business, meet new partners and expand their own business. Bringing investors, new technologies and businesses together will always result in new arrangements and business being done – which can only be positive for the wider market.

What is your projection for the show in the next five years?
One thing that I do know is that you can never predict the future. We are all very well aware of that, given our experiences since 2020. The exhibition will want to continue to grow to meet demand for exhibition space and demand from international businesses to enter the Nigerian market. However, there is not an exhibition centre that will be able to meet these capacity requirements in Nigeria.

This is something that I would like to be addressed as Nigeria is fast becoming a hot spot for international exhibitions to take place. Industry heavy weights such as Informa and DMG are running more and more events here every year and there is also the rise of some incredibly talented local exhibition organisers such as Zenith Exhibitions and Elan Exhibitions. Exhibitions were a catalyst for economic growth in Europe post World War 11, which was achieved with great effect.

A new Government in Nigeria offers new opportunities to grow the economy, and exhibitions remain the most effective way to do that – when combined with business conducive policy and action.Back to Food and Beverage, we are happy to continue to act as a platform to connect Nigerian business with the global food and beverage industry. If we can have a positive impact on improving food availability, bringing food pricing and inflation down and supporting Nigerian business then I will be incredibly proud and happy with our achievements.