POLAGRA 2020 − designed with taste

As every year, during the POLAGRA fair, food products produced in large production plants as well as in small family manufactories will be presented. A significant part of the exhibition will also be occupied by machines for the food sector, additives for food production as well as confectioning and packing equipment. Particular attention should certainly be paid to the products awarded with the MTP Gold Medal.

The main burden of this year's edition of POLAGRA, however, rests on substantive meetings, referring to the current situation of the agri-food and HoReCa industries.

Agriculture after 2020

This will be the topic of the meeting of the ministers of agriculture of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, as well as Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Slovenia, which will be held on the first day of the POLAGRA fair (28.09.2020). The meeting will also be attended on-line by the ministers of agriculture of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and Janusz Wojciechowski, EU Commissioner for Agriculture. The topics of the talks will be the Common Agricultural Policy after 2020 and the application of new technologies in agriculture in the context of climate challenges.

At 11:45 am in room 1F (level 1) of Poznań Congress Centre, a press conference of the ministers summarising the meeting will be held. The conference will last an hour.

Culinary competition for the young generation

This year, during the POLAGRA fair, the WorldSkills 2020 National Qualifiers organised by the Foundation for the Development of the Education System will be held again. This is a competition for young talents − students of catering schools from all over Poland, who will compete in such competitions as: confectionery (September 28, 2020), cooking (September 29, 2020), restaurant service (September 28-29, 2020) and carving (September 30, 2020). The course of the competition will be supervised by excellent experts, incl. Iwona Niemczewska − chef of the Grand Diplome in the French culinary school Le Cordon Bleu in London, Michał Doroszkiewicz − World and Polish Champion of Young Confectioners, Grzegorz Górnik − Director of the Waiters Academy, and Grzegorz Gniech − Polish Champion in Carving, gold medalist of the International Culinary Olympics IKA and the World Cup in the carving category.

The stakes in the competition are high − winning gives you the opportunity to qualify to represent our country at the international WorldSkills Shanghai 2021 competition. The qualifiers will be held at 10:00-17:00 for the three days of the fair.

Substantively of the new reality and new challenges

This year's edition of POLAGRA will be an arena for discussions on topics that are currently challenging for representatives of the food and HoReCa industries.

During POLAGRA we will talk, among others on how the COVID-19 pandemic affected consumer behaviour (28.09.2020). The lecture will discuss the results of the latest research conducted in Poland and around the world, as well as short- and long-term forecasts for the FMCG and HoReCa markets. The meeting will be hosted by Arieta Prusak from the MOXIE Interactive Agency.

Marcin Leśniak of BM Quality Group, also on September 28, will lead the training for representatives of gastronomy: restaurateurs, café owners and managers, catering companies, confectioneries, bakeries, on good manufacturing and hygiene practices in catering.

On September 29, it will be possible to take part in a meeting on the latest trends and legal obligations in food labelling. This topic at POLAGRA was started two years ago and invariably arouses great interest due to constant changes. This year, Magdalena Zielińska-Kuć and Piotr Popielarski, lawyers from WKB Law Firm, will answer, inter alia, questions whether entrepreneurs will witness another revolution in the field of food labelling in the near future, and will present the surprises prepared by the EU and Polish legislators for the food industry. Participants of the meeting will also be able to find out whether labelling products with the “nutri-score” system will become obligatory, whether terms such as “virus-free”, “eco” or “vege” can be used freely and which trends in food labelling are worth following today.

POLAGRA will also be a place of talks about multi-material packaging, bioplastics and ecological packaging materials that can be used, among others in the food industry. They will be held during the conference: The latest trends and solutions in food packaging (29.09.2020), organised by the Polish Chamber of Packaging.

An important part of the program will also be trainings on business development and image building on the Internet. On the last day of the fair (30.09.2020), experts from WKB law firm, Aleksandra Dziurkowska and Emanuel Wanat, will share their knowledge of how to conduct business in accordance with the letter of the law, in particular sales, in online channels. They will focus on aspects such as: website regulations, general contractual conditions, privacy and cookie policy, marketing activities and the use of intellectual property rights. During this training, you will also learn how to properly guarantee consumers their rights, how to draft the provisions of documents regulating the rules of using the website, and how to adapt the Internet business model to the possibilities and needs of the entrepreneur.

Also on September 30, you will be able to take part in the training entitled “Find restaurant customers online. How to create target groups for Social Ads and Google Ads?”. This topic undoubtedly arouses interest, especially in the light of the data showing that the average Pole spends about 2 hours a day, or 1 month, searching the web. Therefore, there is no doubt that the Internet has become a space where large-scale relationships, including business ones, should be built. This is where we find customers and ambassadors of our brand, and experts from the Creative Agency MOXIE will tell you how to do it.

Workshops for chefs, café and confectionery owners

For 3 days, during the POLAGRA fair, you will be able to observe the participants of the Biznes Restaurant Academy meeting, who will take part in workshops conducted by excellent chefs: Tomasz Milewski, Wojciech Harapkiewicz, Tomasz Jakubiak, Dawid Łagowski and Tomasz Purol.

In turn, owners of cafes and confectioneries will be able to participate in workshops prepared by Primulator, also on all trade fair days. During the ice cream and confectionery workshops, you will be able to learn the basics of ice cream and chocolate production as well as new trends in the production and display of ice cream. And during the food workshops we will discuss how to earn more on bread and how to diversify the offer of small-format outlets. The culmination of each fair day will be coffee workshops, during which you will be able to get to know, among others new trends in the coffee industry, learn the basics of roasting and find out what to consider when choosing an espresso machine for a bakery, ice cream parlour or confectionery.

The complete programme of POLAGRA 2020 and accompanying events is available at www.polagra.pl.

Security at the highest level

POLAGRA will be the second business event in the autumn fair program of Grupa MTP. The exhibition as well as conference and training spaces will be arranged based on the solutions recommended by professionals and guidelines of the Chief Sanitary Inspectorate. At the entrances to the fairgrounds thermal imaging cameras have been installed to measure body temperature of people participating in the event. Spaces for exhibitors and visitors are arranged so that you can keep an appropriate distance. Frequently touched infrastructure elements are disinfected on an ongoing basis. Tickets are sold online only.