6 things you need to know about Host Milano 2019

Host Milano is one of those events for which you could read a very brief summary and think you know everything you need to know. A tradeshow dedicated to food taking place in the city of Milan? What a beautiful thing, no further details necessary.

But Host Milano 2019 is even more incredible than it already sounds. It’s an event so huge and astounding it isn’t possible to sum up everything you need to know in a brief summary. Instead, take a read of these next six points to begin to get a grasp on what exactly these five tremendous days in October entail.

#1. Host Milano is the biggest and best hospitality tradeshow in the world

This is a point on which there can be no debate. Host Milano isn’t one of the biggest hospitality tradeshows in the world. It isn’t arguably the best. It is the premiere hospitality tradeshow in the entire world, taking place every second year in Italy’s second largest city. The 2019 edition of the event will feature over 2,000 exhibitors and attract 190,000 visitors to the renowned Fiera Milano fairgrounds over the course of five days beginning October 18th.

This international hospitality tradeshow provides an exciting look at emerging trends across the hospitality, restaurant and catering industries, collectively known as HoReCa. This includes everything from new technology and innovations to accessories, raw materials and finished and semi-finished food products.

Host Milano focuses on eight main categories within HoReCa: food service equipment, bakery including pizza and pasta, coffee and tea, bars and vending, gelato and ice cream, pastry, furniture, and tableware. It features more than 400 exhibitions including seminars, performances, show cooking, workshops and demonstrations by starred chefs, famous pastry bakers and cake designers, master gelatieres, renowned baristas and bartenders, and other HoReCa heavyweights. These exhibitions take place in multiple languages to appeal to visitors from all over the world.

All in all, Host Milano is an all-encompassing HoReCa tradeshow that provides visitors with an unparalleled look at the food and hospitality industry and a multisensory experience that won’t soon be forgotten. It truly is a global kitchen, with exhibitors from a total of 54 nations, including Albania, Argentina, Colombia, Iran, Latvia and Lebanon – six countries that will be represented for the first time.

#2. 56 companies will be awarded the prestigious Smart Label Host Innovation Award

Innovation and technology have long been at the heart of Host Milano, and there is now a standardized system in place to award the companies that are boldly bringing the hospitality industry into the future. The Smart Label 2019 Host Innovation Awards are presented by Host Milano in conjunction with POLI.design and this year will be awarded to a total of 56 companies for excellence within their industries.

The Smart Label Host Innovation Awards are given to companies, products or technologies that demonstrate leaps forward in terms of technology or functionality, environmental sustainability, or ethical and social implications. Companies are invited to nominate themselves and their products, which are then judged by a panel consisting of professors and industry experts. Three categories of Smart Labels can be earned: Smart Labels, which are given to innovative products, Innovation Smart Labels, which are given to products that are especially-forward thinking and mold-breaking within their industries, and Green Smart Labels, which go to innovative products that are environmentally friendly or sustainable.

Many of this year’s award winners feature IoT technology, something that helps make complex technologies more user-friendly and cost-efficient. One Green Smart Label award winner using IoT technology is international coffee machine designer and manufacturer de jong DUKE. De jong DUKE creates coffee machines for all levels of the industry, from roasters to end users, and their machines make it easy for all levels of customer to connect to their machines to do everything from plan maintenance, run diagnostics, restock, monitor drink creation and – of course – brew coffee. De jong DUKE is focused on providing sustainable technology, lowering the environmental impact of their own manufacturing, and providing customers with energy management controls to run on reduced power.

Not all recognized innovations are driven by IoT technology, of course. Some of the Innovation Smart Label award winners have created solutions for classic problems, such as Stable Table Scandinavia, the makers of tables that can stabilize themselves on any surface and lock their legs into place, all automatically and requiring no manual adjustment.

For the full list of Smart Label winners, click here.

#3. Ripples will be introducing the esteemed Host Milano crowd to bev-top media

The idea is both simple and revolutionary: using 100% natural extracts, Ripples prints high-res content on foam-based drinks such as coffee, beer, and cocktails. Where other media fail, beverage-top media delivers because it helps brands and businesses capture a moment of precious attention – the moment a drink is served – with content people actually want to consume

Beverage-top content can include personalized greetings, trending artwork and fun or inspirational quotes from Ripples dynamic content feed, promotional offers updated in real-time, brand logos – literally anything!

#4. The world’s best latte artists will be crowned on October 21st 

As anyone who has ever admired truly great latte art knows, latte art is so much more than a cute heart on the top of your foamy morning coffee. Latte art is exactly what it sounds like – it’s art, and it’s a serious art at that, with five grading levels and a host of highly certified examiners that award the grades to accomplished baristas.

Host Milan 2019 will feature what is essentially the Olympics of latte art – the World Latte Art Grading Systems Battle, otherwise known as the Latte Art World Championships. The event will take place on October 21st and will feature more than 20 baristas from ten countries, crowning a champion in the three highest grading system levels. The world championship will follow the Italian championship, which will name the top latte artist in all of Italy.

#5. Three top trends to watch are eco-friendliness, bars of the future and coffee innovation

There will be so many trends to tap into at Host Milano it would be impossible to touch on them all here. However, it is possible to key in on a few of the trends that will be dominating Host Milano as well as dominating HoReCa in general.

The first is eco-friendly innovation. Food professionals and the public at large are shifting towards a new type of consumption, one that continues to focus on quality while also focusing on health and ethics. Green options, superfoods, vegan and vegetarian cuisine, the local food movement and natural innovations will be showcased at Host Milano, helping our world move towards a more sustainable but increasingly delicious future.

Also looking to the future in a big way is the bartending industry. Feature products you can see showcased at Host Milano include the bartender robot from Tecnobeverage, a machine that uses 11 bottles of spirits and 12 aspiration pumps to automatically dispense a huge variety of cocktails quickly and precisely, and a next-gen IoT tap from Zerica that offers remote diagnostics and maintenance. Both of these products have received the Host Milano Smart Label.

Further, what would a food and beverage tradeshow in Italy be without the major trends in coffee? Look for superfood coffee, egg coffee, frothy nitro coffee, goth lattes made with activated charcoal and flower extracts to dominate the drinks themselves, while coffee printers like the Ripples AM will make a foamy splash as a major tech innovation.

#6. The event will take place in the gelato and pastry capital of the world

Just as you can’t have a food and beverage tradeshow in Milan without discussing coffee trends, you can’t have a food and beverage tradeshow in Milan without talking about the gelato and visitors will be able to learn about and – more importantly – indulge in.

Important trends in ice cream that will be exhibited at Host Milano include detox ice cream out of Spain made from green apple, celery and seawater, ice cream sushi, activated charcoal ice cream, beer ice cream, gold leaf covered ice cream, and barista-brewed coffee popsicles. In terms of tech, look for 3D printed ice cream to turn heads.

Pastry will of course be receiving a headline slot at Host Milano with the Luxury Pastry of the World by Iginio Massari.
This event will feature 20 of the world’s best pastry chefs doing first-class demonstrations and tastings for visitors, an experience that belongs on the bucket list of pastry connoisseurs.

Photo courtesy of: https://packageinspiration.com

Five days in food paradise

It would be possible to go on endlessly about the many amazing features and events of Host Milano 2019. With its size, prestige and reputation, it is an event that is unmatched the world over. Instead of lengthier write-ups and ever more breathless previews, perhaps this is an exhibition that can be summed up as something that simply needs to be experienced for food professionals, buyers, and food lovers alike.

Heading to Host Milano? We’d love to see you there! Schedule a free demo today.

Photo courtesy of host.fieramilan.it