Between 3-5 April 2022, the city of Brașov hosted the 13th edition of the most important event: GastroPan exhibition. The exhibition attracted a large number of visitors, specialists in the field of bakery, confectionery and HoReCa who experienced the various solutions presented at the stands of the exhibitors. The personal meetings were a great pleasure for the specialists in the guild, especially after a period full of unrestrained restrictions and difficulties and also, in current unsafe circumstances. The summary of the event reconfirms: GastroPan is the most important professional event for the profile business in Romania.
GastroPan visitors had the opportunity to experience, test and taste a wide range of solutions, equipments, technologies and ingredients, some of which are available for the first time on the market. Managers and specialists in the field have discovered business ideas and solutions for streamlining activities, reducing costs, increasing quality or developing new products and services adapted to current market requirements.
At GastroPan exhibition, innovation was diversified such as vanilla-based caviar and mint ice cream, pepper bread, pumpkin bread with activated charcoal and cake with 3 types of countertops from different cakes, but also robot-waiters who walked through the exhibition hall with products that could be tasted.
Most of the stands hosted demonstrations – whether it was the launch of innovative technologies, the production of products from the ingredients they developed or distributed, the solution of software problems or the tasting of new types of coffee or drinks made during the event. At the stands of Romanian and foreign bakers, chefs and confectioners, the talents were shared with visitors who also had the opportunity to taste different products prepared at the exhibitors’ stands.
Along with the leaders and elite members of the most important national and international organizations such as Aurel Popescu, Viorel Marin, Radu Zărnescu, Dumitru Burtea, but also Cornelia Ghișoi, Ilonka Boldizsár were also present at the exhibition.
In these difficult times, the representatives of the most important associations of milling and bakery in the country and abroad specify that the times are uncertain, difficult, but there are hopes and thoughts that the future will modernize and evolve. Considering the milling and baking industry in the past, it can be said that it is growing year by year in terms of diversification of raw and auxiliary materials used and final products, technology and technological flows implemented, manufacturing machinery and equipment, marketing, thus, it can be said that this branch of the food industry is constantly evolving.
Regarding the GastroPan competitions, the cake of the year 2022 is Energy Booster, a cake which combines the thin layers of meringue leaves with walnut and vanilla cream of the Hungarian Eszterhazy cake with 3 new basic ingredients: oily fruits (nuts, almonds, hazelnuts), caramel and baked apple. Asztalos Attila’s bread from Eldi Bakery was the best industrial bread. The Artisanal Bread of the Year 2022 trophy in Romania went to Harmopan’s Bakery. The best pastry turned out to be the semi-syrupy cake with walnuts made by Ștefan Alexandru from the Moncris company. At gastronomy section, the teams of chefs had the task of preparing a festive dish with fish or seafood dishes, but also a traditional Romanian dish and a basic vegetarian dish, category which was won by Chef Vasilică Bejenaru and Chef Florin Ciobanu.
The organizers would like to thank all the exhibitors, visitors, specialized associations, competitors, sponsors, members of the jury and partners who supported the event! Congratulations to the competitors for their ingenuity, talent and professionalism with which they prepared for this competition!