Fi South America 2026 Field Snapshot: What 94 Booth Conversations Showed

FIELD SNAPSHOT · FI SOUTH AMERICA · SÃO PAULO

Our field note from Fi South America 2026 described what we presented at booth C-39 and the application questions visitors kept returning to. This second piece looks at the same three days from a different angle: what the record shows. Below is an aggregated view of the event’s scale and of the 94 conversations our team logged at the booth between 4 and 6 August 2026 — and, at the end, where we will be exhibiting next.

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Everything below is presented as a group trend. No personal or company information is shown, and the booth charts describe recorded conversations only — they are not a census of Fi South America’s visitors.

The Event at a Glance

Fi South America brings ingredient suppliers, food and beverage manufacturers, distributors, importers and technical partners together in one of Latin America’s most active food markets. For the 2026 edition the organiser projected:

The most recent official visitor-sector profile the organiser has published — from the 2025 edition — puts the food and beverage industry first, followed by ingredients, additives and inputs; distributors, importers and exporters; and consultancy and technical services. Our own booth record for 2026, below, follows that shape closely.

Thank you to everyone who visited booth C-39, explored the applications, tasted the samples and shared their questions about flavour, texture, product format and process.

What the Booth Conversations Revealed

Across the three days the team kept a record of every substantive conversation at the booth: the market the visitor works in, the product format they asked about, and the application they had in mind. Aggregated, those notes give a clearer picture of where pistachio interest currently sits in the region than any single day on a stand can.

Where Visitors Came From

Brazil formed the core of recorded visits and Latin America the main cluster, which is what a São Paulo show would suggest. The tail is the more interesting part: the record also includes visitors from the United States, South Korea, Indonesia, India and Bangladesh. A regional exhibition also worked as an international one.

Industry Mix and Product-Format Interest

Two rankings sat behind most of the discussion — the kind of business the visitor was in, and the product format they asked about. Both are shown in rank order against their own leading category.

Gelato and ice cream led the industry mix, with distribution and manufacturing close behind. That combination matters commercially: at the same booth, over the same three days, one format was drawing both the businesses that would use it and the businesses that would carry it.

On the format side the concentration is sharper. Pistachio paste and butter led every other option by a wide margin. Cross-interest in other nuts, pistachio powder, pieces and granules, and 100% pistachio with no additives each came up consistently but well behind — a useful signal that regional demand is still gathered around one format rather than spread across a range.

The Applications We Heard About

Gelato and ice cream were named in twenty conversations, ahead of bakery and confectionery. Nutrition and protein, and tea and coffee, came up less often but consistently enough to note — both are categories where pistachio is not yet a standard ingredient in this part of the world, and both were raised by visitors rather than by us.

What We Take From It

Read together, the two strongest lines in the record point the same way: the most concentrated combination at the booth was pistachio paste for gelato and ice cream, and it was being asked about by manufacturers and distributors at the same time. That is a narrow, well-defined starting point rather than a broad one, and it is where we can be most useful — matching a specific paste to a specific frozen application, rather than treating every enquiry as a request for a standard pistachio paste.

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The quieter lines matter too. Powder, pieces and the 100%-no-additive format each appeared in a small but steady share of conversations, and the applications furthest from our current core — nutrition and protein, tea and coffee — came up unprompted. Those are the directions we will be listening for at the next shows.

Where You Can Meet Us Next

The schedule below covers the exhibitions currently planned through 2027.

1. 16–18 SEP2026ICE CREAM CHINA 2026The 28th China Ice Cream & Frozen Food Industry Expo · Tianjin
2. 13–15 OCT2026HOTELEX Shenzhen 2026Shenzhen International Hospitality & Catering Expo · Shenzhen
3. 22–24 OCT2026Bakery China Autumn 2026The 11th China International Bakery Autumn Exhibition · Wuhan
4. 02–05 MAR2027MOBAC SHOW 2027The 30th Machinery, Materials, Marketing of Bakery and Confectionery Show · Chiba
5. 15–19 MAR2027Gulfood 2027Dubai World Trade Centre & Dubai Exhibition Centre
6. 30 MAR–02 APR2027HOTELEX Shanghai 2027The 35th Shanghai International Hospitality & Catering Expo · Shanghai
7. 24–28 OCT2027iba 2027The World’s Leading Trade Fair for the Baking and Confectionery Industry · Munich

All dates are planned and subject to confirmation, and further international food exhibitions will be announced. If you would like to arrange a meeting at any of them — or discuss an application before then — we are glad to hear from you.

Sources: Fi South America organiser material for the 2026 event projections and the most recent published official visitor-sector profile; Nutoast booth conversation records compiled by our sales team.