Hong Kong Food Expo: new craft beers, old signatures but still no tasting allowed
- Covid-19 restriction measures, including vaccine pass, in place to protect visitors, say organisers
- 90 per cent of the nearly 1000 exhibitors, more than last year, will be accepting one of the six consumption voucher payment systems
Local craft beers will be offered for the first time at the much-awaited Hong Kong Food Expo along with its signature HK$1 (12 US cents) chicken pot, but no visitors will be allowed to taste anything on site.
The annual five-day event at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai opens on August 11, with nearly 1,000 exhibitors, according to organiser the Hong Kong Trade Development Council on Tuesday.
Besides coffee and wine, the public will be able to explore drinks from local craft breweries. Vendors will be selling HK$1 chicken pot, snowy durian mooncakes and more.
However, tasting, a hallmark of the event in the past, is still forbidden in the venue, in accordance with current Covid-19 restriction measures. Visitors will need to present their vaccine pass at the entrance.
“We want to maintain a safe environment for visitors and exhibitors,” said Sophie Chong, the council’s acting executive director. She urged the public not to remove their masks in the exhibition area.
Despite tasting being banned since 2021, Chong pointed out that the number of exhibitors in 2022 surpassed last year.
She said that the roll-out of the government’s consumption voucher scheme on August 7 and the recent opening of the Exhibition Centre MTR station would attract more people to the event.
Over 90 per cent of exhibitors will be accepting at least one of the six consumption voucher payment systems, namely Bank of China’s BoC Pay and HSBC’s PayMe, Alipay HK, Octopus, Tap & Go and WeChat Pay HK. AlipayHK is operated by Ant Group, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, which owns the Post.
Capacity at the expo will be capped at 85 per cent to conform with social-distancing requirements. Last year the event attracted 370,000 visitors, Chong said. About 450,000 and 510,000 people attended in 2019 and 2018, respectively.
Several indoor buffer areas have been set up for visitors to line up when the venue reaches capacity.
To spread the flow of visitors, morning and night admission offers will be introduced to encourage the public to visit the exhibitions during non-peak hours.
All visitors who spend HK$200 or more on a single receipt can enter a daily lucky draw, with a maximum of five entries per receipt.
The International Tea Fair, Home Delights Expo, and Beauty and Wellness Expo will also take place simultaneously at the same venue, as will the two-day International Conference of the Modernisation of Chinese Medicine and Health.
