Process Expo, Dairy Show Going Separate Ways

Sept. 23, 2015
IDFA joins new ProFood Tech in April 2017; FPSA will go it alone that fall.

Decades ago, they were a couple, then they split, then they got back together. Now they’re again going their separate ways, having found new partners.

No, this is not some Hollywood love story. The histories of Process Expo and the International Dairy Show have been intertwined since the late 20th century. During their last co-located show, which was Sept. 15-18 at Chicago's McCormick Place, each of the sponsoring associations announced new show plans for 2017.

The International Dairy Foods Assn. (IDFA) said it was folding its event into new ProFood Tech, "THE food & beverage processing event," April 4-6, 2017, in Chicago's McCormick. Partners are PMMI – once the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute, now a major trade show organizer and magazine publisher, and rebranding itself as "The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies" – and German trade show giant Koelnmesse.

The Food Processing Suppliers Assn. (FPSA) – once called the Dairy & Food Industries Suppliers Assn. – will again make Process Expo a stand-alone event in the fall of 2017, presumably in Chicago's McCormick Place.

Not to be out-Germaned by the IDFA folks, FPSA already had Nurnberg Messe’s InterBev Process as (an invisible) part of this year's show, and the association invited Messe Düsseldorf to walk the floors to promote its international trade fair for the packaging industry: Interpack Processing and Packaging 2017. Scheduled for May 4-10, 2017 in Düsseldorf, Germany, it's dangerously close in time to ProFood Tech.

Both associations cited a dire need for another trade show for the food industry – something disputed by the few attendees we talked to at Process/Dairy Expo.

When Pack and Process Expos split after their last co-located show in 2009, PMMI announced a "Processing Zone" pavilion for future Pack Expos. FPSA this year announced a "Dairy Zone" for its future Process Expos.

So there!

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