Koeln Parma Exhibitions (KPE) presents the 2023 edition of Cibus Tec, which will be held in Parma from 24 to 27 October, and announces the birth of the First Machinery Observatory for Food & Beverage  

In the presence of the Italian and international press, the program of the 53rd edition of Cibus Tec, the highly specialized event dedicated to technologies for the food and beverage sector was announced. The highlights of the trade fair event and the scenario data were presented by Thomas Rosolia (President of Koeln Parma Exhibitions and CEO Koelnmesse Italia), Antonio Cellie (CEO Koeln Parma Exhibitions and CEO Fiere di Parma), Emanuele Di Faustino (Head of Industry, Retail and Nomisma Services) and Matteo Zoppas (President of ICE-Agenzia). 

The meeting was also an opportunity to announce the birth of the first Machinery Observatory for Food & Beverage – created with the support of Nomisma – dedicated to the Italian food-mechanical industry, which aims to identify dimensions, performance, markets, and competitiveness indexes of the supply chain on an international scale. In particular, in this context, the analysis of the positioning of Italian machinery on international markets was presented today in light of the strong propensity for exports of the sector, which in the first quarter of 2023 recorded a growth of 20 percent on the same period compared to 2022. 

A few months after the opening of Cibus Tec 2023, the available exhibition area is already almost sold out, with 1200 confirmed exhibitors, including the best Made in Italy food-mechanical companies and more than 400 foreign brands from 30 countries, including Germany, France, Turkey, Denmark, India, United States of America and China. 

Over 40,000 visitors from Italy and 120 countries around the world are expected in Parma from 24 to 27 October, with an important presence of visitors from Europe, the United States, the markets of South America, and Africa. 

Furthermore, thanks to important investments, the collaboration with the ICE Agency, and the support of the Emilia-Romagna Region, more than 3000 VIP Top Buyers of food&beverage companies from over 60 countries have been invited: the remarkable presence of top buyers from the Middle East and Southeast Asia.  

Of all the events dedicated to the food technology sector, Cibus Tec boasts the most exclusive and structured incoming programme, the Top Buyers Program; VIP visitors – top figures of the most important food companies in the world – live an extremely distinctive business experience, complete and assisted in every step by a specialized team. 

One of the oldest fairs in the world, with an 80-year history, Cibus Tec is today a special and global meeting between supply and demand, designed to open up new scenarios, share knowledge in terms of technological innovation and, last but not least, stimulate investments and the growth of the business of the supply chain. 

The fair has always been organized in Parma, an iconic place for the Italian food sector, which has about 1200 food industries. Furthermore, the ducal city represents the capital of the larger “Food Valley,” an extraordinary territory that gathers 60 percent of Italian food production within a radius of 200 km. In these places, a passion for quality food and invaluable know-how emerge, two components that find confirmation in the leadership position that Italy has acquired over the years and today boasts in the food technology sector. 

In particular, among the most exported food machinery from Italy in 2022, we find machinery and equipment dedicated to packaging – for a value of 4 billion euros -, technologies dedicated to food processing – 2.5 billion euros – and bottling machines, whose exports, again in 2022, amounted to 1.5 billion euros. In 2022, the markets most controlled by Italian exports of food & beverage technologies were the countries of the European Union, with 39 percent of exports. North America, with 16 percent of the total, followed by Latin America, non-EU Europe, and the Far East. 

In this scenario, Cibus Tec 2023 confirms itself as “the” international showcase of excellence in which operators, producers, and experts find the most advanced food&beverage technologies, from the transformation of raw materials to packaging, passing across all related hot topics. 

In particular, the 53rd edition, reconfirming its leadership in the events dedicated to processing and packaging technologies for fruit and vegetable-based products and for the dairy sector, was chosen by the market as the reference event for the ready meals sectors, meats, alternative proteins, and beverages, hosting all the most important global brands. 

A further peculiarity of the 2023 edition is the presence of the largest area dedicated to the best food tech and artificial intelligence start-ups. There will be dozens of selected global companies that will present the most interesting applications of artificial intelligence and robotics to the public: highly innovative solutions which, from cultivation to the packaging of transformed products up to nutritional analysis processes, will allow a more sustainable, efficient and safe approach to food. The project makes use of the collaboration with Le Village by Crédit Agricole, ICE Agency, and other important international partners. 

In a period of great change for the food sector, in which the consumer, increasingly attentive to what he brings to the table, is looking for healthy, safe, and sustainable products, Cibus Tec enriches its exhibition offer with a path dedicated to packaging: “NextGen. The future perspectives of food pack”. The route is articulated on three different levels. The first, an exhibition, involves hundreds of leading brands in the sector, ready to present the main innovations in terms of alternative packs and highly automated technologies; the second, experiential, see the activation of three production lines that will take the visitor to the center of the processes of the dairy world and bakery products; finally, a third level designed to indicate emerging trends, also in the fields of digitalisation, sustainability, innovation, ecological transition, alternative packaging, and food safety, through a rich program of conferences. 

Cibus Tec 2023 is also the reference event for the future of food safety. In addition to boasting the exhibiting presence of the most important Italian and foreign suppliers of laboratory and analysis equipment and solutions, it organizes with LabWorld.it, the LabWorld Arena (a permanent area for conferences and meetings on food safety). It hosts the most important Italian conference on challenges and solutions to combat food contamination. 

Furthermore, Cibus Tec 2023 was chosen by important Italian and international bodies and institutions as a platform to offer training, discussion, and analysis of the great challenges of the food chain. Among these, the National Order of Food Technologists and, in particular, the Ordini Regionali of Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, Marche, and Umbria will use Cibus Tec as a preferential platform to hold three training events that issue training credits to members. 

Today’s press conference was opened by Thomas Rosolia, President of Koeln Parma Exhibitions, who, after thanking the participants, stated that “the almost sold out of the exhibition spaces – including 65 percent Italians exhibitors and 35 percent coming from abroad – and the great adhesion of the Top buyers involved – over 3000 key executives of the world’s top brands will arrive in Parma next October – are a confirmation of the extraordinary nature of this event capable of both enhancing the technologies of our country and involving the most important realities and companies across the border. With Cibus Tec, together with the international portfolio of trade fairs organized by Koelnmesse in the mechanical sector for food & beverage in Germany (Anuga FoodTec, ProSweets Cologne), India (ANUTEC – International FoodTec India, IIDE – India International Dairy Expo), China (Anufood China FoodTec Zone) and Colombia (Andina Pack) today we are the reference platform for reaching the most strategic global food processing hubs.”.   

Antonio Cellie, CEO Koeln Parma Exhibitions, later intervened, stating that “the strength and success of a fair are determined by two variables: the vocation to fuel innovation and the ability to attract the key geographies of that sector. We are adding a third element to Cibus Tec, the experience “in the field,” thanks to which the Food Valley, during the days of the fair, is transformed into the setting for an ideal polycentric and multi-sectoral “factory-tour,” during which visitors can connect insights, knowledge and experiences inside and outside the fairground.

On the other hand, the Italian food tech sector, in Parma in particular, has an innate ability to interpret the needs coming from abroad and translate them into “tailor-made” solutions, which adapt the knowledge and processes already developed with success for Made in Italy agri-food.

With its experiential and international exhibition scope, Cibus Tec is, therefore, the ideal meeting place for operators dealing with the most complex food-mechanical issues and the most diverse macroeconomic scenarios, from US reshore policies to growth needs, respectively, structural of Africa and qualitative of Asia; this happens because CibusTec is among the very few exhibitions in the world where, for 80 years, they have been exhibiting Food Processing & Packaging technologies that interpret the epochal needs of the Agri-food Industry.

The latter, like today, often finds itself facing epochal transitions of which our country is frequently a virtuous laboratory.”