It looks like the coffee and restaurant scene in South East Asia will keep booming.
Café Asia 2019, International Coffee & Tea (ICT) Industry Expo 2019, Sweets & Bakes Asia 2019 and the inaugural Restaurant Asia 2019 set a new record, by captivating some 15,000 visitors with a multi-sensorial showcase of ‘Firsts’. The concurrent shows were declared opened by Guest-of-Honour, Mr Chee Hong Tat, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry & Ministry of Education.
The highly successful Café Asia and ICT Expo series were first launched in 2013 and the Sweets & Bakes series was introduced a year later. This year the Italian Carpigiani, world leading manufacturer of ice cream and gelato equipment, presented its brand new Freeze&Go, a little batch freezer designed to add gelato to Restaurant’s Menus in the most creative way. Stellar chefs in Italy (Massimo Bottura, Davide Oldani…) and in Europe are already loving it. The Singaporean Nutrition Innovation Group introduced Nucane, 100% natural cane sugar, low GI according to WHO standards. Stevia, health conscious food ingredients and wellbeing oriented recipes have been in the spotlight.
Restaurant Asia presented its first Restaurant Asia Symposium 2019. Speakers at the symposium themed, Futureproof F&B: The Next Lap, shared invaluable insights on productivity, capability development and leverage on relevant technologies to future-proof the F&B business.
Together, the four exhibitions formed a dedicated platform to host some 250 exhibitors from 28 countries to meet the needs of cafes and restaurants all over ASEAN and beyond.
Three high-octaned National Coffee Championships saw Singapore’s home-grown baristas, brewers and latte artists contend in the Singapore Latte Art Championship, Singapore Cup Tasters Championship and the Singapore Coffee in Good Spirits Championship. Winners of the respective national titles will represent Singapore on the international stage at the world championships later this year.
The winners are:
| Singapore Latte Art Championship | Jervis Tan of Kinsmen Coffee |
| Singapore Cup Tasters Championship | Ong Siew Hui of Starbucks Coffee |
| Singapore Coffee in Good Spirits Championship | Ong Shi Chun |
(Valentina Righi - BOOP.NEWS)
