Europe Tour : Germany - Day 2

Woke up as early as 3 am in the morning and can't sleep and the my body system still cannot jive in with the timing there. Force myself back to sleep again and woke up again at 6.30 am. Weather in the morning is a bit cold and get ready to meet up with the 3 uncles at the lobby at 8.30 am.

A view from my hotel room

Took a cab to the train station and we had a quick breakfast at the station. Nothing is nice and all sandwiches looks good to me but it is cold. I just had a bite of an egg sandwich and a cup of hot chocolate. BIG BOSS asked me what happen to me and I told him I don't like the cold sandwich and I can't even swallow another bite of it.

The travel distance from Dusseldorf to Cologne by train is about 45 minutes. In the previous year they used to stay in Cologne but this year they booked too late and end up got to stay in Dusseldorf. We catch the 9.15 am train and schedule to reach the Koelnmesse Exhibition Hall at 10 am and just in time to start the first business meeting with the Loacker prinicipal at 10.30 am.

The ANUGA FOOD FAIR which was held every 2 years in Koelnmesse and this year they have about 6,607 exhibiting companies from over 95 countries and total expected crowds this year is about 163,000 trade visitors. Last 2 years, I missed this trip because I was pregnant with Ee-Thern and TCH get the chance to go. This year its my turn liao.

In Koelnmesse they have 10 halls and each hall exhibiting different kind of products category :

1. Fine Food

2. Meat

3. Frozen Food

4. Chilled Food

5. Dairy

6. Bread and Bakery

7. Drinks

8. Catering Technology

9. Retail Technology

10. Organic World

Our main target for today is to source for Organic products.

We before we start of our sourcing, we went over to the Loacker booth and had our meeting first. The Loacker booth is so simple and the branding is so stands out. Took picture with TL's leng chai principal, according to GS he is the Italian version of Slyvester Stallone. hihihi.... and next to me that 'ang moh' lady is his mom.

At about 12 pm we started with our Organic sourcing. Went over to our Malaysian booth and had our lunch at Chef Sun's booth. He is promoting the Organic Mee Suah. The fried mee suah he fried for us is so so so delicious and I had a big plate of it.

Met up with few potential suppliers and we discuss about pricing and the product itself. Looks promising to me but SHIT, the follow-up job is to be done by me. That is why VV told me " there is no FREE lunch in this world ".

The organic spread with 75% fruits and low sugar which is also suitable for diabetic patient.

I love this booth. These are some very innovative organic products. It is a organic vegetables instant meals and you just need to heat up for a minute in a microwave.

Some organic pasta and ravioli

I called this the western pau that caught my attention. The pastry is just like our char siew pau and the difference is the filling inside is Blueberry. Then it is served with some hot custard sauce. It is so nice and I get BIG BOSS to try it cos he loves sweet dessert.

Some vegetarian products from Taiwan which BIG BOSS is interested. It is not chilled nor frozen vegetarian food, but it is stored in ambience temperature. I could say Malaysia is still far behind from other countries in term of producing innovative products and packaging. This is a real eye opener for me to see how advance is the technology in the other part of the world.

Some nice booth display and they are just so creative in exhibiting the frozen puff pastry and some ready to serve dessert nicely display on the shelf.

The fair ended at 6 pm and we still have 2 hours to kill before we head on to the Tabasco Dinner hosted by the principal for their distributors through out the world. The dinner started at about 9 pm after some cocktail session. This is a real torture dinner for me . It is a fine dining and look at the portion of the food, like 'chiak beh pah' one and all are so small portion and the dinner is served damn slow.

At 10 pm, I am too sleepy cos the time difference is 6 hours and Malaysian time should be 4 am in the morning. My eyes really want to close and I kept yawning. Sitting next to me is the distributor from Sweden and he is asking me I should be damn sleepy by this time. Yeah he is right.

The 3 uncles also ' beh tahan' liao and before we could eat the dessert, BIG BOSS wanted to go back the hotel and give the reason to the principal that I am not felling well. Really celaka.

A gift from Tabasco and I have yet to open up to see what izzit inside.

Reached hotel almost 11.30 pm and after taking bath, straight away went to sleep till morning 8 am.

***** Germany - Day 3 coming up next *****