Snapshots of Hamburg's Internorga show: Europe's place for setting foodservice pace.

It's the longest running and biggest trade fair of its kind in Europe. For 82 years, Internorga has been the international place to meet and greet for Continentals in the hotel, restaurant, catering, bakery and confectionery supply business. And this year's rendition proved to be no exception, as more than 116,000 trade visitors attended the March 7-12 event at the Hamburg Messe and Congress site.

Setting up shop at stands occupying 80,000 square meters of hail space were approximately 1,000 exhibitors from 24 countries, including a number of frozen food suppliers to the foodservice industry. Among them were Erlenbacher Backwaren, Salomon FoodWorld, McCain GmbH and Mex-Al of Germany, Farm Frites of Holland, Frisch & Frost of Austria, HUG AG of Switzerland, and Almondy of Sweden.

Claudia Johannsen, project director for Hamburg Messe, noting that the fair pumped some 193 million euros into the local economy last year, was confident that this year's economic impact would be even better. "The turnout and quality of exhibitors as well as visitors, as usual, is quite good," she told Quick Frozen Foods International.

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The event was kicked off the night before the show opened at an inaugural ceremony in Hamburg-Altona's Fish Auction Hall. The highlight of the evening was presentation of the Internorga honorary prize to Walter Gehl, chairman of the management board of LSG Lufthansa Service Holding AG, the market leader in international airline catering with its LSG Sky Chefs organization.

A "high flyer" in airline catering, the LSG unit is responsible for supplying one out of three meals consumed aboard commercial aircraft worldwide. Last year its Sky Chefs team produced some 387 million meals that were served by over 300 airlines. It employs about 28,000 people affiliated with 140 companies at 190 facilities globally. Combined turnover is in the range of 2.3 billion euros per annum.

LSG Sky Chefs works closely with suppliers to develop new recipes and test kitchen and food processing technologies. It also provides numerous services and products associated with in-flight catering, including food transport systems.

Held concurrently with the fair were the International Foodservice Forum, Hospitality Forum and the Second International Bakery Convention, which featured a number of speakers who addressed subjects ranging from "Making and Shaping Markets" to "Branding."--Reported by John M. Saulnier

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