Following a successful debut last year, the Philippine International Restaurant, Café & Bar Expo (Philresca) will once again bring the world’s leading and rising brands, suppliers, players and professionals under one roof and provide the industry with a definitive business-to-business (B2B) sourcing platform from March 8 to 10 at Hall A of the World Trade Center.
Philresca remains the only tradeshow in the Philippines that officially hosts competitions sanctioned by World Coffee Events, the premier producer of events for the coffee community worldwide.
As the one-stop-shop B2B event for restaurant, café and bar entrepreneurs, Philresca’s three-day event will connect about 3,000 attendees to 45 suppliers at the exhibit floor.
The number of exhibitors rose by 22 percent this year, attesting to a dynamic and growing industry.
To complement the presence of exhibitors, Philresca seminars will provide restaurant, café and bar owners with the latest trends and best practices to scale up their businesses.
Meanwhile, the country’s most awaited coffee competitions, the Philippine Coffee Championships, will run concurrently with Philresca.
The championships are designed to upgrade and test the skills of professional Filipino baristas, latte artists, mixologists and brewers through a series of four events:
1) 5th Philippine National Barista Championship. The competition focuses on promoting excellence in coffee and advancing the barista profession in the country. The winning barista will compete at the World Barista Championship in Amsterdam, Netherlands on June 20 to 23.
2) 4th Philippine National Latte Art Championship. The championship highlights artistic expression in a competition platform that challenges the barista in an on-demand performance. The winner will represent the Philippines at the World Latte Art Championship in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in November.
3) 1st Philippine Brewers Cup. One of the two new competitions this year, the event highlights the craft of filter coffee brewing by hand, promoting manual coffee brewing and service excellence. The winner of the 1st Philippine Brewers Cup will officially represent the Philippines at the World Brewers Cup on Sept. 16 to 18 in Dubai.
4) 1st Philippine Coffee in Good Spirits Championship. This new event promotes innovative beverage recipes that showcase coffee and spirits in a competition format. This competition highlights the barista/barkeeper’s mixology skills in a setting where coffee and alcohol go perfectly together. Like the World Latte Art Championship, the World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship in which the Philippine winner will join is set in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in November.
“The restaurant, café and bar industry continues to grow, particularly driven by rising disposable income, strong consumer confidence and the non-stop evolution of the Filipino palate which prefers better, if not superior, product quality,” says May Juan, president of the Philippine Asia Conferences & Exhibitions Inc.
“With a dynamic Philippine market, the 2nd Philresca will be bigger and more comprehensive, offering owners and entrepreneurs with a wider range of suppliers and partners to choose from. Equally important, this year’s Philippine Coffee Championships will include more internationally sanctioned competitions, providing a great platform to meet and compete against the best professionals in coffee-making and mixology in the country,” she adds.
Philresca is supported by Allegro Beverage Corporation, Blu Coffee Distributors, Conlins Coffee World, Cooko Culinary & Barista Academy, Destileria Limtuaco & Co., Inc., Distinto Beverage Solutions, El Kapitan Food Enterprise, Fly Ace Corporation, Goldbell Impex Philippines, Inc., Henry & Sons Manufacturing & Trading Corp. and Kerry Manufacturing Phils., Inc. along with media partners F&B Report and Hospitality News Philippines.