The International Food Products and Processing Technologies Exhibition - WorldFood Istanbul, 
the international collaboration platform of the food industry, has achieved significant success 
in the number of visitors, exhibitors, and foreign hosted buyers this year. For 4 days, 835 
exhibitors from 25 different countries brought together more than 2000 brands with 38,358 
professional visitors from 163 countries; one out of every three visitors was recorded as a 
foreign visitor.
WorldFood Istanbul, the largest sector exhibition in Eurasia and on its way to becoming one of the largest 
sector exhibitions in the world with the momentum it has achieved and its expanding area of influence, 
celebrated its 30th anniversary with its stakeholders as it opened its doors at TÜYAP between 1-4 
September 2022.
WorldFood Istanbul, which is a cooperation platform where many local and foreign brands take place and
where the sector is represented with all its stakeholders, from producers to entrepreneurs, has made 
significant improvements in visitor, exhibitor, foreign hosted buyers and business volume figures compared 
to last year; WorldFood Istanbul history records were broken.
This year, the exhibition welcomed 38,358 visitors from 163 different countries, with 33 percent of the 
participants, or 12,633 in total, being foreign visitors. Thus, WorldFood Istanbul increased the number of 
foreign visitors by 141 percent compared to the previous year, and the number of exhibitors reached a 
historic level.
THE IMPACT OF THE HOSTED BUYER PROGRAM IN ACHIEVING THE BUSINESS VOLUME GOAL
While 835 exhibitors from 25 different countries presented over 2000 brands to the taste of both 
professional visitors and over 600 foreign hosted buyers from 77 countries, the pre-exhibition goal of "at 
least 1 billion Euros business volume" was achieved as a result of the meetings held within the scope of the 
WorldFood Istanbul VIP Hosted Buyer Program for 4 days.
WorldFood Istanbul 2022 hosted very important hosted buyers, mainly from critical regions such as Middle 
East and North Africa (MENA) countries, Balkan countries, CIS countries, South & North America countries, 
Southeast Asia, within the framework of this program, which was crucial in establishing new collaborations 
and signing agreements during the exhibition.
Semi Benbanaste, Director of WorldFood Istanbul, stated that the number of hosted buyers has reached a 
significant number and that the last exhibition was an important experience for WorldFood Istanbul to be 
among the most important international exhibitions in its sector and added: "The Hosted Buyer Delegation 
Program is the one that affects the commercial dynamism in our exhibitions and improves the business 
volume goal. This year, we hosted a significant number of hosted buyers, over 600 of them in Istanbul. As 
a result, we exceeded the business volume of 1 billion Euros we targeted before the fair, and contributed 
to sales worth 1.2 billion Euros. I would like to say that especially our local exhibitors who produce in Turkey 
have taken a big slice of the pie." He drew attention to the contribution of the Hosted Buyer Program to 
the business volumes of the exhibitors in 4 days.
IS A ZERO-WASTE KITCHEN POSSIBLE?
With sessions, workshops, entrepreneur presentations and award ceremonies held during the exhibition, 
industry stakeholders followed the sector from the Food Arena event area and on YouTube.
Benbanaste stated that another focus topic of the exhibition was to identify trends and talk about the future 
of the sector, and said: "This year, in addition to sustainability and safe food, the focus of our events was 
to find solutions to waste, which is one of the most important problems of our sector, or what can be done 
to reduce waste, and how we can use our kitchen in this direction. In addition, our entrepreneurs, whom 
we care about and support, had the opportunity to introduce their new products and services to the sector."
During the exhibition, Creative Appetizers Inspired by the Zero Waste Movement and Creative Desserts 
Inspired by the Zero Waste Movement workshops were held in cooperation with the Turkish Cooks 
Association, focusing on the approaches by which food waste can be utilized, and how waste can be 
minimized or eliminated to a certain extent, with products selected from the participant booths. The Special 
Exhibition Tour, organized in cooperation with the Gastronomy Association with the limited participation 
of gastronomy experts, visited the participant booths and evaluated the approaches, solutions, and 
products that combat zero waste with healthy and reliable products.
While the Presidents' Forum, which has become a classic for WorldFood Istanbul, was held again this year, 
İHBİR (Istanbul Cereals, Pulses, Oil Seeds and Products Exporters' Association) announced the sector's 
export target for 2022 as 13 billion dollars; the benefits of the trust created in the product and supply chain 
to Turkey and domestic producers were conveyed with case studies.
TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVES PREPARE THE SECTOR FOR THE FUTURE
While 10 different entrepreneurs presented their new products and services to the participants in the Food 
Arena event area, the 2020-2021-2022 women entrepreneurs of the "Empowering Women in Agrifood -
EWA" program, which is supported by the European Union and the European Institute of Innovation and 
Technology in cooperation with Impact Hub Istanbul, Foodback.co and Topraktan.co, shared their 
innovative projects and stories with the audience in the Food Tech Garage area.
Innovative approaches this year included healthy snack production, functional nutrition, non-chemical 
fertilizer and soil-friendly olive production, as well as solutions and services to help bees produce healthy, 
abundant and nutritious honey with Artificial Intelligence and to prevent waste.