SFIGF09 & Natural Product Expo 09

It has been a while, but there were two trade shows which my company participated to.

The first one is San Francisco International Gift Fair (SFIGF) held in February at the Moscone Convention Center. It was our second time to participate to the gift show - the first time was Seattle Gift Show 08. Compared to the Seattle's show, SFIGF was huge, and I could meet many buyers from famous companies such as Deans & Deluca.

This time, our sales rep. Xcidia had a booth and our products was a part of their products. I was very pleased that many customers came to the booth and tried our tea. There were many people prefer Sen cha and Hoji cha, but mostly Genmai cha was the top favorite during the show.

The second show was Natural Product Expo 2009 held in March at Anaheim Convention Center. Just like Fancy Food Show in January, Shizuoka-prefecture (the area where our teas come from) had a booth at the show, and my company was selected as one of the two companies helping them at the booth. Because green tea is the most famous agricultural product in Shizuoka, they chose us to intrduce authentic Shizuoka green tea. Another company exhibiting at the booth is Tamaruya, which is very traditional Wasabi company. Combination of green tea and Wasabi received a lot of favorable comments from customers.

Fancy Food Show 09

This is our first time to participate to the Fancy Food Show. This show is very famous in the food industry, and I've been very interested in the show for a long time. This time, we had a booth under the name of Saitama/Shizuoka Prefecture, which were two prefectures in Japan come to introduce their local industry.

Because of the depression of the global economy, other exhibitors said the number of attendees was less than previous year. However, I believe there were more sophisticated attendees because companies cannot afford to send inconsequential employees now. Person attending the show must have had clear reasons and high motivation to develop their business through this show.

Throughout the show, I made more than 1,000 cups of tea as a free sample, and there were a lot of people showing their interests in our products. I was very pleased to meet many decision-making persons and explain about our teas. Mostly, customers were very interested in our Genmai cha, which won the blended/flavored category of the World Tea Championship 2008. Of course, Sen cha and Hoji cha had received many positive feedback, but I felt a lot of potential of Genmai cha during this show.