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Nourishing Partnerships at Food Ingredients Asia

Cargill made quite a splash this month at the Food ingredients Asia (FiA) trade show. Guided by the cornerstone theme of “Nourishing Partnerships, Innovating Solutions”, Cargill dazzled current and potential customers with an interactive kitchen, an eye-catching conceptual booth and feature presentations by R&D experts in a variety of formats.

 

Held this year in Jakarta, Indonesia, Fi Asia is the premier Southeast Asian food ingredient trade show, connecting buyers and suppliers across the region. This year’s event, which ran from Oct. 3-5, featured more than 750 exhibitors from 60 countries and attracted nearly 20,000 attendees from 66 countries. Overall trends observed at this year’s expo centered on ingredients that will enable companies to create “better-for-you” foods that are increasingly both nutritious and tasty.

Cargill’s innovative booth provided a unique way to showcase our industry-leading capability to help customers win. At an event featuring so many exhibitors, including competitors like ADM, AAK, DuPont, Olam, Tate & Lyle and Musim Mas, it is crucial to stand out. Cargill rose above the crowd with the overall look and design of the booth. The tree concept design was eye-catching, serving as a landmark for attendees wandering the floor and as a way to emphasize Cargill’s long-held commitment to environmental responsibility and sustainability.

 

At the booth, attendees could pick up “solutions cards,” each identifying a customer need and detailing Cargill’s innovative solutions and key ingredients to address that need, along with the benefits added by each solution. In addition to the solutions cards, customers could also take the “One Cargill” brochure, which highlights how Cargill’s ingredients can help customers develop healthier, tastier products with a longer shelf life in texturizers and specialty products, sustainable cocoa, oils and fats and cold water-swelling starches, among others.

“One Cargill, what does it mean? It means internally we work together as a single team, and externally customers view us as a single unit that serves them,” said Kamal Balakrishnan, sales manager for Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate, who worked at the event.

The experience of food

Based on our insight that more and more customers everyday are viewing food as an experience, Cargill’s exhibit went beyond information about our ingredients and capabilities to also provide an experience for attendees.

Cargill’s exhibit featured an interactive kitchen, where attendees could sample delectable such as a new artisanal chocolate praline that delivers fantastic taste with lower trans fats, an eggless vegan salad dressing that has a longer shelf-life but still delivers the creamy, natural taste everyone loves, and chocolate soft-serve ice cream.

Not to be outdone by the booth and kitchen, Cargill’s R&D team made an impact by participating in a variety of presentation opportunities. At the “Innovation Station,” Cargill showed off our cold-water swelling starches. At a technical seminar, Ching Ching, Andreas and Hui Chin gave a presentation titled “Nourishing Partnerships” to highlight Cargill’s capability to stay ahead of healthfulness trends in the food and beverage industry. Lastly, Sabeer explained how we developed a new high-intensity sweetener called ViaTech at the Fi Asia theater.