Food and drink expos making their way to secondary markets


BY GREG PRICE insight magazine


grow across the province. The yearly expo is now featured in Lethbridge,


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Medicine Hat,Red Deer and Grande Prairie, thanks to the vision of Chris Meilleur, who noticed there was a demand for it in secondary markets beyond the huge urban areas. Meilleur,owner and operator of the Alberta Food and


Beverage Expo, was a liquor rep and restaurateur back in the day in the large urban centres, when he noticed some of his best business was coming from the smaller cities. “The whole idea of this came about when I was a


liquor rep.I was constantly working the bigger shows in Calgary and Edmonton and I always wondered why there was never anything in the secondaries, and Lethbridge specifically. Lethbridge was my territory in southern Alberta,and as a rep,I wouldn’t see very many of my clients when I was doing the big shows in Calgary,”said Meilleur.“My numbers were coming from the secondary markets, that’s where I was doing my best business. I recognized it very early on that there was a demand there that wasn’t being filled at the time. I knew it was something that was needed here. Let’s do it and see if it works to get people out and rep-


n event circled on the calendar every year for people in southern Alberta who enjoy their food and drink with flair, the Alberta Food and Beverage Expo continues to


resent their products.” Seven years ago the humble vision


started in Lethbridge.Meilleur admits he was very stressed that first year, not knowing exactly how it was going to turn out and pre-sale tickets were nil. But, at-the-door sales proved the foun- dation of what is now a go-to event of the year for foodies. “We sold zero tickets up to the moment of the show and then we had 2,600 people show up and buy tickets at the door. It was a very stressful, surreal type of moment. It was great,it was at the Enmax Centre which was sig- nificantly smaller than it is now,”said Meilleur.“We had 50 or 60 vendors back then.That started to transform over three years into people calling us from other mar- kets in Medicine Hat and Red Deer, saying we need the show here and we just needed a couple more years to refine what we were doing here.” The food and beverage expo would grow from the Enmax Centre to Exhibition Park where Meilleur added the expo had 6,600 people go through the doors in 2018. “Right now,we have 200 booths as compared to 50 or 60 in our first year,”said Meilleur.“It has grown quite a bit.After that third year,we were helping restaurants, and helping to connect the liquor reps with those restaurants to get them out to support these business- es in the secondary markets, and it sort of snowballed from there.We jumped to Medicine Hat and Red Deer


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where it will be our fourth year in those markets,and we jumped to Grande Prairie last year. So, it’ll be our second year in Grande Prairie this year.” Meilleur admits to a big learning


curve those early years, where the biggest trials by fire were running the expo itself. “Having the industry experience


from being a liquor rep to a restaura- teur, it was about designing the show around the needs of those two groups.


I found before, shows would tend to cater to one side or the other more and I wanted to really connect and make sure it worked for those two groups,” said Meilleur.“Especially restaurants,because from a restau- rant perspective, the marketing these days is really tough. It’s hard to justify where all that comes from. Where should you spend the limited marketing dollars that you do have? I’ve always known as a liquor rep, getting your product directly into the mouth of the consumer while you are in front of them is the best way to market any product, if it is consumption based.” Whether it’s an independent business or chain,


Meilleur added at food and beverage expos, you get to directly meet the people behind the scenes for the product. “It’s important to know where you are spending


your money. Quite often you don’t get to meet the owner or the manager of the restaurant.You just see the server.This is an opportunity for them to connect


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