The 28th edition of SIMEI, international exhibition for winemaking and bottling technology, has lots of new features in store and will take place from 19 to 22 November in Milan.
Over the years, SIMEI has established itself as the largest networking event in the wine industry worldwide, recording significant numbers every year: 30,000 professional operators from all over the world, more than 500 high-profile exhibiting companies, and upwards of 400 delegates from more than 90 countries in the world.
This demonstrates the leading role the exhibition has achieved on an international level and how it meets the needs of a thriving and continuously growing market. Looking at the numbers, the growth of Italian exports in this sector – over 70% of the wine technologies present in wineries all over the world are Italian – constantly register a + sign, confirmed also by the data from the first five months of 2019. This shows a 10% increase compared to 2018 and a turnover of around 900 million euros (896,615,939), with particular attention to bottling and packaging machines, which grew by more than 50 million euros (+10% compared to 2018).
Based on the data collected from operators, labelling machines in particular have supported this increase as wineries have increased investments to have more flexible labelling machines. Among the countries with the most significant growth are Argentina, Croatia, Greece, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Vietnam and the United States. Large countries such as France and Germany have remained stable. China is in sharp decline.
To date, there are already more than 400 exhibiting companies signed up to SIMEI 2019 and registrations are continuing to come in from Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, UK and Switzerland (the leading countries). Following them, Bulgaria, China, Greece, Portugal, Poland, Moldova, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovenia, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, USA, and South Africa. Exhibitors are mostly from the wine sector, approximately 90%, and the remaining 10% from other sectors such as beer, oil, beverages, juices, water, vinegar, spirits, and milk.
In addition to technological excellence, which remains the heart of the biennial exhibition that Unione Italiana Vini has been organising since 1963, the general layout of the event has been renewed. This has opened the event up to new productive sectors of ‘liquid food’ close to wine and introduces very current issues such as architecture and design, linking them to the sector.
More than 400 foreign delegates representing all continents are confirming their participation in the SIMEI “incoming” project, begun in collaboration with the ICE-Agency (whose objective is the promotion abroad of technological products made by Italian companies, to promote companies and sales) and Fiera Milano.
