Why I attended the trade show

Being a dreamer, I envision and aspire to own a business one day. And since I have cultivated some cooking and baking skills at home, I wanted quite badly to set up a F&B business.

What is stopping me?
The biggest obstacle I have is fear of failure. I constantly think about how much I need to set up the business, how much I need to set aside for rainy days, how much I need for me and my family to survive and how long I need to take to break even. And if I don't break even, how do I recover my loss. There seems to be too much to lose though I seem to have lesser things to lose as compared to those who are married and with children. All these do make a dreamer like me unhappy.

Why do I want to blog about it?
I want to share my experience with aspiring entrepreneurs like me and that they may find the courage to step forward and use some of the information posted here to start their dream journey that is similar to mine.

Another reason is for me to re-focus and reflect my thoughts not only about the FHA trip, but also to develop my future plans on how I should proceed.

What was I looking for in the trade show?

I was looking for the type of equipments available for the set up of the kitchen. I will elaborate in my future post. As for now, I can only remember the following I was looking at:-

a) Equipments
The equipments I look at generally includes those that will be used for production, storage or display.

1) Ice-maker
2) Ice-blender (with box)
3) Ice-cream maker
4) Oven (I saw some oven that washes itself. Amazing!)
5) Stainless steel sink (set-up)
6) cupboard fridge
7) Ice-cream display.
8) cake display
9) Hot Pastry display
10) Coffee machine
11) Meat processor (For mincing or making patties)
12) Hot plate or BBQ tepan

b) Food supplier
As for the food supplier I include those materials used also for beverages as well.

1) Coffee beans
2) Frozen Fruits supplier
3) Chocolate pellets supplier
4) Milk
5) Flour

c) Packaging supplier
I was particularly looking for a variety of cup cakes paper and various types of plates and paper or plastic cups for beverages.

d) Competition
When there is competition, I gather that these chefs are probably the few selected candidates and some travel some distance to be in Singapore for the competition. You can also imagine that their culinary skills are impressive even before you see their exhibition.

1) Fruit carvings
2) Chocolate carvings

e) Culinary schools
I was abit disappointed not to find any stalls offering any culinary course or any schools taking this chance to introduce themselves, except probably in the culinary competition.

f) To enjoy myself tasting the samples
There is however a word of caution that sometimes, exhibitors like to use those materials that are near its expiry date. And as participants, we must also watch ourselves from being a gluten at the trade show; to sample everything you see in the exhibition.

First time in FHA 2006

If you get the idea that I am advertising for FHA, you are wrong. It is however, my first official time attending the trade show as a participant. The last time, I was one of the part-timer helping out in one of the stalls.

It was indeed a big event to me because as a trade visitor, I get to see many different participants from different countries and on top of that, there is the competition that makes it even more exciting. It occupies from Hall 1 thru Hall 6. Though I was there for half a day, I suspect that one day isn't enough to walk through every stall. There is simply too many things to see (that is if you intend to see them stall by stall).

As a green horn, I look out for those that either entertain me or if I am interested enough to ask. It has been overwhelming for me. I do look forward to the next FHA that is in two years time.