Having circulated around IFE this week I could not escape the feeling that fresh fruit and vegetables have become the poor relation as far as most food trade exhibitions are concerned.

The days when marketing boards and UK packers and co-operatives flocked to take stand space and the Journal sponsored the first such show at Birmingham, in which I had a part, seem to be over.

The emphasis has switched to specialist gatherings in Berlin and Rotterdam, rendering the UK a relative backwater.

Searching out the news at IFE was rather like mining a seam of felspar and being lucky, in horticultural terms, to dig up a great deal of volume. Not only were individual exhibitors thin on the ground, but even the subsidy often available through the international pavilions had not had much affect.

Of course there were some well-known faces, backed by some impressive names and a few newcomers from afar. But real substance for the sector was lacking.

I have a sneaky feeling it is not so much a question of cost or the added expense of staffing a stand together with accommodation for three days, but rather the fact that the retail trade has contracted and there are fewer, large specialised players in the UK and overseas to exhibit.

Certainly the fresh produce industry still seems to come through the turnstiles, but one visitor observed, not untypically: ?With only seven or eight controlling some 80 per cent of the business, we know who they are. The route nowadays is to try and get into the offices with an exclusive proposition and then you finish up dealing with a category supplier.?

It is not a question of doom and gloom but rather a change of emphasis. Fresh produce exhibitors these days tend to focus on the foodservice industry.

As a result, many of the suppliers with space are more interested in supplying processors with products that have been engineered to be convenient, highly edible and aesthetically pleasing ? but most of all, different.

What can be gauged by an impressive overall attendance is not just the sheer scale and sophistication of the UK food industry, but the vast and competitive range of imported alternatives.

A classic case coming out of Spain was frozen, stoned, ready-to-eat avocado halves, treated so they will not brown after thawing. These proved particularly tempting to caterers at this current time of shortage.

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