News

BACK TO NEWS LIST

FIFCA success at the 2025 Barcelona Seafood Expo

ColTO reception underway at the Falklands stand

Falklands presence grows year on year

The Barcelona Seafood Expo Global (SEG) is the world’s largest seafood exposition and takes place in April/May every year.  The Falkland Islands Fishing Companies Association (FIFCA) has, since all travel restrictions were lifted post-Covid, been represented at the show and, over those years, the FIFCA stand has continued to evolve and grow.

The 2025 show was no exception. As well as having all of the elements from the previous couple of shows it was decided that we would include a hanging element for the first time in many years to increase the visibility of FIFCA from further away as one of the key reasons of attending the show is to project the Falkland Islands and its key industry onto a global stage.

Over the course of the event, more than 35,000 seafood industry professionals, (seafood suppliers and buyers) from around the world visited, with discussions taking place about the latest food trends, innovations and future solutions to the major challenges facing the whole sector.

This year, the Expo brought together 2,187 exhibiting companies from 87 countries and 68 national and regional pavilions. The economic impact for the city of Barcelona is estimated to be more than 156 million Euros.

The event itself lasts three days, traditionally from a Tuesday to the Thursday, though it’s common for people to turn up on a Sunday night in order that they have Monday to iron out any niggles and oversee the finishing touches to the stand.

The event started on Tuesday and FIFCA’s James Bates, who was chief organiser of the Falklands’ presence at the show, was at the venue early to receive frozen products for the display freezer and those for consumption and begin with the final decorative touches of the stand. Carlos, our Barcelona-based chef was soon on hand, the 3rd consecutive year that he has cooked for us. On the menu this year was squid, Toothfish bites and an amazing kingclip ceviche. We were keen to ensure that products from all fishing groups were represented. In the display freezer, (kindly put together by Jan Van den Oever of Georgia Seafoods), we had lovely samples of 5kg Loligo blocks, King-clip fillets, Toothfish trunks and whole fillets. It was arguably the finest display of products we have taken to the show and we were keen to see the door open to the public.

There is no set routine at these events and there is always enough FIFCA representatives at the stand to take any questions, meet new leads, promote the Falklands and the Association and prepare the G&T’s (with Falklands gin no less). From 11am, we had a steady stream of visitors, from buyers, logistics and consultant specialists to members of fishing related media publications such as Seafood Source and Undercurrent News.

As the day wore on the food was going down a storm and drew more people to the stand. At 3pm, it was a wrap in food terms and Carlos left for the day, rightfully happy about the last few hours of good work. However, there were still another three hours or so before the end of the first day for the rest of us. Overall, it was a very successful day.

We spent some of Tuesday thinking that for next year we might ask to be re-located ever-so slightly towards the centre of one of the main halls as those walkways had a more, “arterial” feel to them in order to further increase the footfall to our stand and our visibility, but on Wednesday, we got a feel of what that increased traffic might look like, because traditionally, the second day of this show is always the busiest and this was no different.

Almost straight from the get-go, it was all hands to the pumps, particularly between 11am and 2:30pm. The king-clip ceviche, squid and Toothfish were going down a storm to such an extent that Carlos struggled to keep up with the demand. He did an amazing job bringing out the very best of the products on display. No sooner were they plated, the plates were emptied. In addition, we were also starting to get low on the FIFCA merchandise.

There then followed a lull, for which we were all grateful, because at 4.30pm the FIFCA stand served as the venue for the annual reception of the Coalition of Legal Toothfish Operators (CoLTO). This was a successful event which James coordinated and there was a real buzz to the stand for the next two hours.

The third and final day of the Expo tends to be the quietest day however we had a very steady flow of interested people attending our stand right up until about 2pm, before we began wrapping up for the final time.

The 2025 annual Seafood show was a great success for the Association and the Falklands, and our presence there grows from year to year. It’s by no means cheap to attend the show, but FIFCA are proud to attend the event which principally seeks to raise the profile of the Industry and the Falkland Islands more generally, and our attention has already turned to the next event that will be taking place in April next year.

It was a pleasure to see some members of the Association attend the show for the very first time, as well as seasoned veterans representing the Falklands. Everyone played their part answering questions, serving food, making drinks, etc and James was grateful for that assistance. He added that he was also grateful that FIFCA continued to see the value in our attendance, because it would not be possible without their support.

Recent News