Fresno, California – Established as a component of the City of Fresno’s economic development strategy to find innovative ways to increase commerce for not only the City of Fresno, but for all of the San Joaquin Valley’s local food production industry, the Fresno Food Expo returned for its second year in a big way on Thursday, March 8. A total of 84 of the eight-county San Joaquin Valley region’s top food and beverage producers exhibited at the Fresno Food Expo. This unique regional food show drew 450 qualified buyers from local, regional, national and international retail chains, foodservice distributors, local and California-based restaurants and chefs, large government agencies and hospitality venues – all looking to find quality food products for their customers. That is more than double the number of buyers that attended the inaugural Fresno Food Expo. Buying teams from major powerhouses such as Costco Wholesale and Save Mart Supermarkets returned after a successful first year to discover new local food producers and products to bring to their shelves – driving volume sales for these local companies and helping to drive economic development in the Valley.
Unlike other food shows throughout the nation, the Fresno Food Expo is exclusively a regional food show for food and beverage production companies that are locally-owned and headquartered within the eight-county San Joaquin Valley footprint in Central California. These businesses range from small start-up companies like P*De*Q, a Brazilian cheese bread maker that launched at last year’s Fresno Food Expo, to the nation’s largest grower of peaches, plums and nectarines, Gerawan Farming. The 2012 Fresno Food Expo also marked the debut of 31 new products introduced by exhibitors, ranging from fig balsamic jam and natural almond butter, to gluten free BBQ sauce and a chili pepper ale craft beer. A distinctively unique new retail product is an organic guacamole kit that is a joint venture between Homegrown Organic Farms and Pappy’s Fine Foods.
“The novelty of an exclusively regional food show highlighting the nation’s most vibrant food producing region has afforded the Fresno Food Expo national and international attention within the food buying industry,” said Mayor Ashley Swearengin, City of Fresno. “The Fresno Food Expo provides a golden opportunity for businesses to get in front of a variety of buyers in one venue, providing an element of cross-exposure that creates key opportunities to make new contacts and increase their growth opportunities – both for large and small companies alike.”
While it will take time to capture the economic impact of connections made at the 2012 Fresno Food Expo, the successes from the inaugural event were powerful. Since debuting her sweet, smoky, chipotle jalapenos just months before the 2011 Fresno Food Expo, Debi Franklin, owner of Deb’s Gourmet, now has her jars of flavored jalapenos in more than 100 locations throughout California and three in Reno, Nevada. Wawona Frozen Foods, the largest processor of frozen freestone peaches in the United States, was showcasing their new R&D product – “peach jewels” at the 2011 Expo when they came in contact with a different Costco buyer than they traditionally worked with who was walking the floor. This new connection led to Costco Wholesale
picking up Wawona Frozen Foods’ new “peach jewels” in warehouses through California. This is a perfect example of how the Fresno Food Expo creates a key opportunity for exhibitors, both big and small, to connect with new buyers and grow their businesses.
Fresno County is the top agricultural producing county in the nation with more than 6,000 farmers producing more than 350 different crops and generating more than $5 billion in agricultural revenue every year. Out of California’s top 10 agricultural counties, six of them are located in the San Joaquin Valley. There is no question that the San Joaquin Valley is an agricultural powerhouse. Since the inception of the Fresno Food Expo last year, the awareness of the vast food production industry as a whole – a natural extension of the fresh products grown in the Valley – has grown tremendously. The San Joaquin Valley has branded itself as an ideal place to find local sourcing solutions, innovative products and leading-edge packaging – the Fresno Food Expo is helping to further promote that strength through buying channels. With the response to the 2012 Fresno Food Expo, the word is spreading.
“By capitalizing on the region’s strengths and creating an increased visibility of the variety of quality Valley-based food producers, the Fresno Food Expo has established itself as a vehicle for economic growth,” said Amy Huerta, Business Initiatives Manager, City of Fresno. “Not only does the Fresno Food Expo create a heightened awareness within the buying community, but also among the local consumer base, creating a deeper level of brand recognition, driving consumers to seek out local product on grocery store shelves, thus increasing demand and encouraging economic growth.”
In the early stages, the impact of the Fresno Food Expo was felt on a regional level stemming from an outpour of community support drawing the attention of every local food enthusiast, as well as community partners looking for a platform to support local business. At this year’s Fresno Food Expo, more than 650 people turned out for the public portion of the event to see, taste and discover the 84 San Joaquin Valley-based food and beverage producers. New this year, attendees were able to purchase product directly from exhibitors at the Expo.
Both components of the Fresno Food Expo – the public event and closed buyer portion – were created because each audience holds its own unique role in driving economic growth. On a local San Joaquin Valley level, research shows that when a dollar is spent at a locally-owned and independent business, on average that dollar will re-circulate three times the amount of money back into our local economy when compared to that same dollar spent at a chain business. Locally-owned and independent businesses also will utilize local services, as well as put a higher percentage of their profit back into the community in which they live.
The range of buyers – local, national and international – all contribute to the economic growth of our area and provide some level of trickle-down effect. On a larger scale, the national and international buyers attending the Fresno Food Expo are making large volume purchases that increase the intensity of that trickle-down effect – from expanded production capabilities; to job creation to meet those expanded production needs; to increased demand for ingredients, packaging and brand marketing; to expanded infrastructure to support increased volume and the delivery systems needed to move the product.
The 2012 Fresno Food Expo proved to be a success by providing a platform for new business connections – both within the buying community and the industry itself to support economic growth – as well building brand recognition of local food producers among the public. At the 2012 Fresno Food Expo, the overall number of local San Joaquin Valley-based exhibitors expanded from 66 in 2011 to 84 this year and featured an outstanding 31 new products debuted. The overall number of buyers that attended more than doubled from 200 to 450, and represented newly expanded buying sectors such as export and institutional entities. Lastly, the attendance for the public portion nearly doubled, bringing it to 650 attendees; creating an increased number of food enthusiasts who will set out to look for and purchase local product showcased at the Expo. The totality of all these components represents the success of this initiative developed by the City of Fresno to support the valuable food production industry in the Valley.
For more information on the Fresno Food Expo or its exhibitors, please visit www.FresnoFoodExpo.com or contact Danielle LeBouef at (559) 222-1322 OR danielle@cohencommunications.com.
Source: Fresno Food Expo
