What is FABEX? | A B2B Trade Show for Commercial Foods, Ingredients and Equipment for Ready-to-Eat Meals, Foodservice and Bento

The videos shown below are randomly selected from this exhibition. To browse all videos from this exhibition, please see the “Featured Exhibitions by Year” section below.

Benefits of Exhibiting

FABEX allows exhibitors to directly present their products and solutions to professionals involved in commercial food procurement and product development, including supermarkets, convenience stores, prepared-food and bento businesses, restaurants, institutional catering companies, hotels, food manufacturers, trading companies and wholesalers.

Food products have many characteristics that are difficult to communicate through websites or catalogs alone, such as taste, aroma, texture and preparation methods. This makes exhibitions particularly effective because exhibitors can demonstrate product value through tastings and live demonstrations.

In addition to developing new customers, FABEX can be used for meetings with existing clients, test marketing of new products, gathering feedback from product-development professionals, and finding distributors and wholesalers.

Key Points for Exhibition Preparation

Clearly define your target audience and exhibition objective, such as “propose products to supermarket prepared-food departments,” “gain adoption by restaurant chains,” or “win OEM projects with food manufacturers.”

In addition to product samples, organize the information buyers need for adoption decisions, including commercial pricing, minimum order quantities, lead times, shelf life, storage requirements, logistics conditions, preparation methods and production capacity.

When offering tastings, prepare not only to let visitors evaluate the taste, but also to explain preparation time, serving methods, cost and suggested menu applications.

Estimated Exhibition Costs

Booth Space Fee

The booth-space fee is the basic cost of exhibiting. Fees vary depending on the exhibition plan, booth size and other conditions.

When preparing a budget, exhibitors should consider not only the booth fee but also costs for booth construction, electricity, water supply and drainage, kitchen equipment, refrigeration and freezer equipment, and tasting facilities.

Decoration and Booth Construction Costs

As a general planning guideline, a one-booth stand may cost approximately JPY 300,000–800,000, two booths around JPY 700,000–1,500,000, and four booths or more generally JPY 1,500,000 or above.

Food exhibitions may require not only standard display counters and signage but also refrigerators, freezers, sinks, cooking equipment, tasting counters, and water supply and drainage facilities. Construction costs can therefore vary significantly depending on the equipment required.

Staffing Costs

Budget for sales staff, product specialists, cooking and tasting staff, reception personnel and other staff members. When providing a large number of tastings, operations can be easier if cooking and serving personnel are assigned separately from staff responsible for business negotiations.

Transportation and Logistics Costs

Costs are incurred for transporting product samples, display fixtures and cooking equipment into and out of the exhibition venue. Refrigerated and frozen products require temperature-controlled logistics, which may cost more than transportation for ordinary exhibition items.

Please confirm exact fees with the exhibition organizer.

Booth Examples by Size

One-Booth Stand

Focus on core products and position product displays or tasting counters along the aisle. It is important to communicate product benefits in short, clear phrases such as “Frozen Prepared Foods,” “Labor-Saving Solution” or “Made with Japanese Ingredients.”

Two-Booth Stand

This configuration makes it easier to separate product-display and tasting areas from business-meeting space. When presenting multiple product categories, zoning the stand by application or target market helps visitors understand the offering.

Four Booths or More

A larger stand can combine cooking demonstrations, tastings, product displays, video presentations and business meetings. Exhibitors can also recreate a store or kitchen environment to demonstrate specifically how products or equipment would be used after installation.

When selecting a booth contractor, check not only its experience with food exhibitions but also photographs and portfolios showing work involving water supply and drainage, electrical systems, kitchen equipment, refrigeration and freezer equipment.

Key Points for a Successful Exhibition Booth

Visitor Flow Design

Because visitors interested in tastings and buyers seeking detailed business discussions may be present at the same time, separating the flow between tasting areas and business-meeting spaces can make booth operations more efficient.

Visibility

Instead of displaying only the company name, communicate buyer benefits that can be understood quickly from the aisle, such as “Shorter Preparation Time,” “Long-Term Frozen Storage,” “Small-Lot OEM Available” or “Made with Japanese Ingredients.”

Demonstrations and Experience Design

Tastings are highly effective for food products, but rather than simply handing out samples, explaining preparation processes, differences from conventional products and usage methods can make it easier to lead visitors into business discussions.

For food-processing equipment, operating the machinery and demonstrating processing time, required staffing and finished results can communicate the benefits of introduction more concretely.

Using Exhibition Videos

Showing a two- to three-minute product or service introduction video on monitors or LED displays inside the booth allows visitors to understand key product features even while staff members are engaged in business discussions.

Video is also effective for showing information that cannot be brought to the exhibition venue, including food manufacturing processes, factory equipment, production regions, producers, cooking methods and examples of use at customer locations.

If meetings with international buyers are anticipated, adding English subtitles allows basic product information to be communicated even when appropriate staff members are unavailable.

Another approach is to film a company representative or product specialist explaining the product at the exhibition and edit the footage into a two- to three-minute video for distribution on the same day or the following day.

The completed video can be reused on the company website, YouTube, social media, sales emails, product pages and sales presentation materials.

By continuing to publish the video on WorldTradeShow.tv（インターネット展示会.tv）, product information can also reach food buyers and businesses in Japan and overseas that were unable to visit the exhibition. Product explanations made during the exhibition can therefore become long-term sales and marketing assets rather than being limited to the event itself.

If the booth contractor can also handle video production, cooking demonstrations, tasting counters, lighting, monitors and camera positions can be planned together from the booth-design stage.

Visitor Acquisition Strategies for Better Exhibition Results

Email Marketing

Send exhibition announcements to existing customers and prospective business partners in advance, including information on exhibited products, tastings and demonstrations, and booth location. For important buyers, scheduling meeting times in advance can improve efficiency.

Social Media

Promote new products, products scheduled for exhibition, tasting menus and cooking demonstrations on social media in advance. During the exhibition, short videos introducing products or demonstrations can also help reach visitors already at the venue.

Invitations and Direct Mail

For important prospects such as supermarkets, restaurant chains, food manufacturers, trading companies and wholesalers, invitations are more likely to lead to business meetings when they include products and proposals specifically relevant to the recipient.

Exhibition Landing Page

Create a dedicated exhibition landing page on your company website featuring exhibited products, booth number, tasting and demonstration schedules, product videos and a business-meeting reservation form.

Keeping product videos and materials available after the exhibition allows the company to continue generating inquiries through search, sales emails and social media.

Companies That Can Provide Booth Construction and Exhibition-Operation Support

When exhibiting at FABEX, it is efficient to choose a booth contractor that can advise not only on standard exhibition construction but also on the water supply and drainage, electricity, refrigeration and freezer equipment, cooking facilities, tasting counters and hygiene-management requirements necessary for food exhibitions.

Product introductions, cooking demonstrations and interviews with company representatives can also be filmed at the exhibition and edited into two- to three-minute videos on the same day or the following day for communication during the event.

By continuing to publish the completed videos not only on the company website and social media but also on WorldTradeShow.tv（インターネット展示会.tv）, exhibitors can continue delivering product information to prospective customers in Japan and overseas even after the exhibition has ended.

Please see the booth-construction company pages below.