Horeca 2018 highlights Kuwaiti entrepreneurs’ hospitality projects

Exhibition concluded with ceremony, awards, satisfaction survey

KUWAIT: Horeca Kuwait 2018 successfully concluded its third and last day with a big ceremony where the cooking competition’s winners were awarded. The ceremony was attended by executives of participating and sponsoring companies, as well as guests and other participants.

This year’s exhibition attracted a large number of visitors who attended the event held at the Kuwait International Fairgrounds in Mishref from the early hours of morning. Various meetings were held amongst representatives of hospitality companies with the aim of signing business-to-business agreements. Notably, this year’s cooking competition included 32 categories compared to only 12 last year.

In addition, the number of Kuwaiti youth taking part in the exhibition increased remarkably this year as many of the young men and women had already started their hospitality-related enterprises. This was clear through the Jumla Club, Square, Central Craft and Athwaq companies taking part in the event. The third day also witnessed pasta cooking competitions in addition to a special ceremony to award the bedmaking competition winners.

The organizing committee also honored the jury panel including the World Association of Chef Societies (WACS) chef Thomas Gugler, and the former Le Notre head chef, Samaan Hilal, famous TV cooking show presenter chef Maroun Chedid, and ambassador of the French Academy in the Middle East chef Charles Azar.

The honoring ceremony also included participants in four symposiums held during the exhibition. The last day featured a symposium that discussed franchise licenses and home food enterprises, and the speakers included senior chef at Gerbo Six United Ahmed Al-Bader, Theqa restaurants CEO Mohammed Faraj, SISCO’s regional food manager Mustafa AlMasri and Al-Fauzan’s project manager Sanjai Madok.

Meanwhile, the organizing committee headed by Leaders Group’s general manager Nabila Al-Anjeri conducted a survey amongst participants and sponsors to measure their level of satisfaction and use the results in preparations for Horeca 2019.

In this regard, Kuwait Hotel Owners Union’s secretary general and the exhibition’s executive manager Mohammed Najia said that the assessment would play a great role in probing participants’ opinions as basic partners with Leaders Group and hospitality services companies. The exhibition was a great chance for various participating companies, such as Hectar’s, to display their latest machinery and fully automated European-made equipment used for making snacks.