Canada Pork International has decided not to exhibit at Moscow’s big international food fair, Prodexpo, in February 2015, stating that continued uncertainties over when the Russian market will reopen to EU, US and Canadian imports, severely reduces the commercial value of the event.
“We’ve had a booth at that show in the last few years, but will neither participate nor be represented at the 2015 show,” Canada Pork’s president, Jacques Pomerleau, told Pig World.
“Since the latest we could book space and get organised was last October, it was decided not to participate in the next Prodexpo due to not knowing if we would get access by then.”
The Moscow event regularly attracts about 2,300 manufacturers of food and beverages from 64 countries, drawing over 50,000 trade visitors and more than 100 national and transnational retail chains.
The 2015 show, which will run from February 9 to 13, is the 22nd Prodexpo, clearly establishing the event as the premier international exhibition for food, beverages and food raw materials in Russia.
Still hopeful of a relatively early return to normal trading with Russian businesses in the future, however, Mr Pomerleau concluded: “We are definitely not ruling out going back in 2016.”