The European Seafood Exposition celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, and its counterpart, Seafood Processing Europe, celebrated its fourteenth. Located in Hall 4 of the Brussels Exhibition Grounds, Seafood Processing Europe features more than 200 exhibiting companies from 22 countries showcasing solutions for processing, quality control, logistics and storage.
One equipment manufacturer is among the few that have exhibited at the European Seafood Exposition since its inception in 1993, before equipment manufacturers were put under one roof in 1998 — Cretel. The Belgian company manufacturers fish-skinning machinery as well as industrial washing and drying systems under the Eliona Industrial name.
“We’ve been exhibiting here since the beginning,” said Robert Patrick, the company’s senior sales manager. “This is our home turf.”
Exhibiting for the first time this year is Mosca, a manufacturer of strapping systems. The German company has developed a system that uses ultrasound technology to “its full capability” — a special sonotrode produces a “very strong” consistent sealing. According to the company, reducing the sealing time and the omission of the heating time leads to a strapping speed that is increased by 50 percent, and there are no fumes or smells produced and there is no residue built up due to the melting strap to dispose of.
Seafood packaging is a growing part of Mosca’s business. “It’s a big market with a lot of competitiors,” said Markus Köbler, the company’s product manager. “We’ll be back next year. We’re very impressed with the fair.”
Across the aisle from Mosca is Baader, one of the leading manufacturers of food processing machinery. The German company consistently demoed one of its several pieces of equipment during the three-day event.
It’s difficult to miss shuffling through the aisles of Hall 4 — Arbor Technologies’ I2PS machine, which features a robotic arm that can grade product, such as mackerel, sardines and oysters, individually by weight. Also on display was Arbor’s ISS 450 and 650, another automated fish sorting system that can sort fish by species and by grade. It can be installed on a fishing vessels on in a fish auction.
Many of the French company’s customers are in Europe. However, the company is trying to expand in up-and-coming markets like Brazil, said Florence Nignon, marketing manager for Arbor.
Looking to display seafood? Adriatic Sea Aquarium & Equipment offers an attractive array of display cases and live fish tanks. With more than 40 years of experience in the field, the Italian company has installed more than 6,200 systems worldwide — that’s more than 2 million kilograms of storage capacity.
