There, at Expo Live’s Business Connect F&B session for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), they learnt that past World Expos had not only introduced the X-ray machine, the TV and humanoid robots to the world, but had also introduced the ice-cream cone, in 1904 at the St Louis World Fair.

 

The scale of the Expo 2020 Dubai’s planned food and beverage provision is impressive. Professor David Russell, chairman of The Russell Partnership (UK) Ltd, business development consultant for Expo 2020, said a peak day was expected to see 400,000 servings.

 

Darren Tse, Expo’s Head of Catering, Cleaning & Waste, added: “Are we prepared to deliver this for 173 days straight? Hundreds of thousands of people, layering upon us over and over again? That’s when my heart beats a little faster.

 

“Pulling this off for a day, in this beautiful setting that we’re so lucky to have, would be an accomplishment in itself. At any festival in Dubai, to welcome 300,000 people for a day, to put together operations for 160 outlets to serve them, would be an enormous success.

 

“But to do it in a way that’s sustainable, that’s effective, keeping your guests and customers happy for 173 days straight is an enormous challenge.”

 

But Tse urged SMEs not to neglect their existing business while chasing Expo sales, a point echoed by Expo 2020’s senior vice-president-Commercial, Gillian Hamburger, in an interview on the sidelines of the event.

 

In addition to banking assistance for SMEs from Expo partner Emirates NBD, and guaranteed minimum incomes from concessions, giving SMEs greater certainty, Hamburger said Expo would be providing advice and support through the scaling up process.

 

Hamburger added that in the food and beverage sector, Expo was looking at a structure of master concessionaires parenting or mentoring SMEs. “The larger entities can provide some valuable resources, whether it’s logistics, whether it’s food supply, whether it’s manpower and so on... Some SMEs here are extremely established and extremely capable of just jumping right in, but we look at this as a platform where we can take potentially someone who’s quite small and doesn’t have necessarily a retail footprint and have that experience, but then through a mentoring process can gain that and continue on through to legacy.”

 

Legacy is Expo 2020’s term for what happens after the Expo ends; plans are in place to convert the Expo to a mixed-use development.

 

“The last thing we want to do it have an established SME that then diverts resources towards Expo 2020 activation and then maybe turn away from their basic operation on a day-to-day level,” she said. “We have a huge opportunity, but it can’t be at the expense of their existing operation. We do have legacy opportunities, but the footfall in legacy does fall.

 

“But we are global. A complete story for us is someone who gets discovered at Expo and gets launched n a more global footprint to different regions, different areas.”

 

One such example sitting in the audience. Guiseppe Esposito, chairman of EP World Catering Facility Management, launched his Ecco Pizza and Pasta brand at Expo 2015 Milan, and has expanded it into two other countries.

 

“In Expo Milan we found that for all SMEs there was opportunity,” he said in an interview during a coffee break, saying the firm served 300,000 pizzas and 195,000 servings of pasta in six months.

“Now we are in Dubai with two restaurants” and two more in the pipeline, he said, with a presence in Poland as well. “Now I wish to be in Expo 2020 Dubai as well.”