After a hiatus of 2 years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2nd edition of Restaurant Asia 2021 (RA 2021) and the 8th International Coffee & Tea Asia (ICTA 2021) comprising of the 8th Cafe Asia 2021 and the 7th Sweets & Bakes Asia 2021 finally returns with a 3 days exhibition cum tradeshow at Marina Bay Sands Singapore Expo and Convention Centre from 18th November to 20th November 2021.
Though the exhibition was much smaller in scale compared to the previous years, my friends and I were still pretty excited to attend this event with our media passes. This physical exhibition also kickstart the return of other mega MICE events in Singapore since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. The pandemic has posed a great challenge for many businesses and the F&B industry is not spare from this as well.
About 113 exhibitors from 12 countries participated in the show this year. We were greeted by a bevy of roving smart robots from EZ Bot when we entered the exhibition hall. These robots are not unfamiliar to us as we've seen some of these robots in restaurants as well as shopping malls with different tasks assigned to them. The cleaning robot can be tasked to clean the malls and the waiter robot being tasked to deliver food from the kitchen to the customer table.
The use of these robots not only eliminate the problem with manpower shortage but also greatly reduced workplace accidents. The roving smart robots present at the exhibition were tasked with responsibilities such as air purification, escorting visitors to the respective booth as well as acting as a safe distancing ambassador.
Look how cute is this robot where the head of the robot is designed to look like a cat. This sure capture a lot of attention. Not only that it is also able to interact with human touches as it changes expressions when someone stroke its head.
Indonesia as a country partner has its own pavilion showcasing its strength as an important supply chain for ingredients for the F&B, coffee and tea industries.
The Malaysian state of Sarawak provides an important new source of food supplies has also set up a pavilion at the show by STATOS. We visited their booth, played a simple spin the wheel game and got ourselves some freebies after answering the questions correctly. We also learnt that Sarawak is most famous for their Black Pepper. We also received some samples from Kokokam series which is a line of botanical beverages founded in Sarawak and designed for everyday consumption. I got two packets of the Misai Kucing Cat's Whisker Tea which is known to detox, reduce excess heat, good for expelling urinary tract stones and strengthen immunity as well as two packets of the Kokokam Botanical Tea which is known to detox, reduce excess heat and is good for smokers.
At the Kikkoman Singapore booth, we received a cute tote bag containing their soy milk.
We also checked out the different flavours of noodles at the Pontian Malaysian booth. The most popular flavour is the purple sweet potato noodles which was fully redeemed when it's my turn so I requested for the next popular flavour which is the pumpkin one.
We managed to catch the UCC Siphon Coffee Demonstrations on stage by Elaine Wong, Hong Kong Siphonist Champion 2015 & Hong Kong Coffee Championship Runner Up 2018 & 2019. After that, we even gotten a closer view of the whole siphon coffee brewing process back at the booth as Ms Elaine Wong did the demonstration one more time. The coffee brewed this way has three different layer and is more fragrance compared to the normal brewing.
It was really nice to be back to attending events once again with my friends. Thanks for the kind invite.
XOXO
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