Food!

Yesterday I flew in to Toronto with the new Porter airline - the one that lands at the downtown island airport in Toronto.  What a great way to travel, land in Toronto, take a ferry for a few minutes, on to a shuttle bus for a few minutes more, cross the street and voila - arrival at destination within 2 hours of arriving at the Montreal airport.  I am writing this blog from my hotel room, at the Strathcona Hotel, just a couple of blocks from the Metro Convention Centre.  This is not a vacation, although it feels like one.  I am the token anglo of my little group from Périgord attending the SIAL. The SIAL is an international B2B (business to business) food show.  It boasts 544 exhibitors (of which we are one) from over 60 countries, and the show is hosting over 12,800 professionals in the business. The show is not open to the public, and after one day at the show, I can understand why - there is so much food to be tasted! 

I am certainly no stranger to trade shows.  With the Scrapbookerie, we attended trade shows in  the U.S. for our purchases, and we hosted trade shows ourselves for our customers.  But although this trade show is pretty much the same as all other trade shows, the fun part is the food - every booth has someone more than willing to make you taste the specialty that they are promoting.  Even the booths selling kitchen equipment feel that they must offer something for the palate in order to entice people their way.  Time for lunch? Getting hungry? Just take a stroll down the Italian section - you can nibble on mini pizzas, salads, noodles, breads - whatever.  Want to satisfy your sweet tooth - just stroll over to that chocolate specialty booth, or reach over to the booth next door that specialises in pastries.    It's easy to see why this is not open to the public at large - they would go nuts for the food!  But the goal of this show is not to stuff ourselves with all this deliciousness that surrounds us, but to make new clients and contacts and to sell our product.  As much as we all enjoyed sampling the foods in ajacent booths, we had as many people rolling their eyes in sheer enjoyement of our foie gras, magret (duck breast) and patés that we had laid out for them to taste. 

Sometimes it's good to get out from behind my desk and walk in the shoes of the marketing and sales staff.  I will be here for the next 2 days - hopefully I won't gain too much weight!