Kurdish companies participate in century-old food fair in Germany

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Culinary entrepreneurs from the Kurdistan Region participated in an international food fair in the German city of Cologne, held between Oct. 9–13.

The Cologne Anuga Food Fair is one of the world’s oldest and largest such events, held only every other year. The massive gathering has thousands of exhibitors and hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world.

During this year’s event, people from the Kurdistan Region also decided to participate. Kurdish businessman Ahmad Dawoud, who has expertise in the production of food and beverages, spoke with Kurdistan 24 on the sidelines of the fair.

“Our company is based in Romania, and I came to participate in this food festival to meet other international food companies to do business with them,” Dawoud said. 

Sleman Omar, another Kurdish businessman, told Kurdistan 24 that “many Kurdish companies from the Kurdistan Region participated in the fair to expand their businesses.”

This year’s fair used 11 halls with three floors each to contain 6,680 food companies from 91 countries.

According the fair’s website, Anuga has a clear mission for 2021: “To bring the food and beverage industry together for a physical gathering and to provide a forum for face-to-face meetings, maintaining connections and building sustainable business relationships.”

The very first Anuga Food Fair, it continued, was carried out in 1919 in the city of Stuttgart by Germany's specialist food retailers and was a relatively small-scale fair, involving approximately 200 exhibitors.