SIAL CANADA 2019
I had the privilege of attending this year's Sial Canada Show at the Enercare Centre in Toronto. I attended the 3 day Food Industry trade show on May 2nd, 2019. Sorry for taking so long to get to this post but there was so much there that I took loads of pics and have lots to write about here.
Samples, there are so many samples that I have to strategically choose what I want to try because I can't possibly try it all. I learned after the 1st year when I stuffed my face on the massive quantities of cheese available from mostly the Quebec region and after the cheese indulgence I had no room to try anything else. So now I try and look for things I haven't tried before or things I can't resist. The 2 items above fall into the things I couldn't resist category. The spinach Spanokopita were so light and flaky if there weren't a thousand other things to try I would have ate a whole lot more of the. The arancini on the right were gooey cheesy rice goodness. These 2 things are the kind of things I would buy myself to keep in my freezer for guests and for myself for time saving snacks. Both Spanokopita and Arancini are labour and time intensive and these were as good as homemade.
After chatting with Chuck we went over to the Chef Demo stage where we sat through 3 demos which familiar Chefs like Chuck who was with his sidekick Tracy Winkworth who does most of the prep work while Chuck does his stand up routine in front of her then he adds the finishing touches and everyone claps. Yes Chuck is the fun but Tracy brings the food.
Brad Long is the owner of Cafe Belong at the Brickworks and he has also spent many years cooking for Elite Chefs for MLSE organization. Now he has a new book about butter so of course he was making a dish that featured butter so we caught most of the demo and my friend Jenny was chatting up the woman next to her and it turns out she was the maker of the butter that was featured by Brad. After the demo she gave my friend, myself and our other blogger friend Carol some of her Thornloe butter. We were all very excited about that because it's great butter and really expensive too.
The unique thing about this show is the Sial Innovation Award for the best new products. One of the ones that I loved was the ICE coffee which won one of the awards. I also took home a container of the tofu spread. It does not taste like tofu. I didn't try all of the Innovation Award nominees, just too many things but I tried a bunch of them. The other interesting one was the Yummy doh. Pre mixed cookie dough.
I also enjoyed this Pear hazelnut spread, definitely an elevated dessert spread. I think I remember them saying they were from Quebec as well.
There was LOTS of meats this year, With Keto going strong Meat is back. There were lots of cured hams, massive steaks and more.
I also had to stop and take a photo of this guy from Bad Dad Tea. He gave me a nice little sample pack and I told him I loved the branding. It stands out from most of the tea brands.
I don't know what this thing is called but it was pan fried kind of like shreds of phyllo with pistacio's on top. I think it's a Persian dish kind of like a Baklava type of thing. Because I was in a hurry I just blew by as much as I could and didn't take the time to find out more about it unfortunately.
Chef Stefano Failto also entered the product market with his line of sauces. I wanted to try these but by this time I just didn't have time to wait for a sample and was really full but I hope to get a chance to try these in the stores soon.
The one product that had myself and fellow blogger Carol Nelson Brown stop dead in our tracks were these flavour spheres. The grapefruit one on the left was a game changer. I took home a honey one. These things have the texture of fish roe and just burst with fruit flavour or honey when they hit your tongue. This would make your appetizers literally POP.
I missed so much because I was only able to go to 1 day of the 3 day massive show and would have loved to have more time to explore more. I found out later that my friend Vicky was representing another Sial Innovation product the UnBun. I passed the booth but didn't see her and didn't stop to check it out because it was the end of the show.
You really have to have time and a strategy at this show. If you are in the food industry you focus on making connections and sales. For myself and my blogger friends we try and see as much new food and chef demos as we can. It's also great to run into people we know at the show after going a few times you become familiar with some of the people who do the show often.
It's not open to the public but I hope that I gave you a peek at what's coming to specialty food stores, grocery stores and restaurants in the future. I hope to have more time next time to showcase a lot more products.
If you are a Food Industry Professional and would like to find out more about the show or would like to find out more about the products check out the website for more information:
https://sialcanada.com/en/article/sial-toronto-kick-off-2019-edition/
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