The Agrocanarias Fair returns more than ten years later, and it does so coinciding with the Day of the Canary Islands. The Alameda del Duque de Santa Elena, in the heart of Santa Cruz, hosts the first stop of this edition from yesterday until Monday, which will tour all the islands except Graciosa. It is an opportunity to “know, buy and taste” new products in 4,200 meters of exhibition that house fourteen business and twelve gastronomic stands related to agriculture, livestock, aquaculture, artisanal fishing, agri-food industry, parapharmacy with natural products, in addition to gastronomy linked to the products local. Added to all this is a “market”, in which 43 suppliers are integrated.
A walk through the area is a tour of the island’s pantry products: cheeses, mojos, biscuits… and also fruits and vegetables. At noon yesterday, coinciding with the presentation ceremony, some passers-by began to visit the stalls. A kind of rest area made up of straw bales and pallets covered with chipboard sheets with a chipped texture seemed to give a welcome halfway between tradition and modernity.d. From there to the inside, all the stalls at an event that fuses “a traditional trade fair with a gastronomic festival with the aim of bringing the quality of local agri-food products closer to urban environments.”
4,200
- meters of exposure this edition of Agrocanarias has
The person in charge of giving the starting signal was the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Regional Executive, Alicia Vanoostende, together with the CEO of the public company Management of the Rural Environment of the Canary Islands (GMR Canarias), Pablo Zurita, and the director of the Canarian Institute of Agrifood Quality (ICCA), José Basilio Pérez. “More than ten years later Agrocanarias returns”, celebrated Vanoostende. «In the past it had another format, at the Recinto Ferial, much more technical; however, we wanted to give it a spin, bring it to the street, bring it closer to the citizens, so that they can find it on their walk through Santa Cruz de Tenerife and, in addition, give prominence to the local product and the producers from here », he said.
first visitors
Santiago González was one of the first visitors to the exhibition. “I was walking towards the car, which I have here in the parking lot, and I decided to go in, and the truth is that I see that it is quite good,” said this retiree, a resident of La Laguna. “I already tried some cheese and now I’m going to keep going through this a little bit to see what’s there,” he said. At the same time, the institutional representatives made their way through the different exhibitors, some of them more for sale and others where they also offered free product tasting.
“We have not only stands with companies, but also a local market, with mojos, pastries, cheeses, wine, beers… We will have multiple activities, workshops for children, cooking shows with great stars of gastronomy such as Javier Torres or the chefs of MasterChef… to value our local product”, he highlighted, before clinching: “That is the objective of this fair; We offer this product so that everyone can enjoy this long weekend.”
Vanoostende also highlighted: “There are more than 25 stalls, we have a market, which is like a small supermarket., but only local products, where you can take your basket and buy everything you want in a very simple way. I think it is a slightly more dynamic way and it is much more useful, affordable». And he completed: “There are also gastronomic stalls where you can taste both food and drink and we will have musical activities to spend a pleasant time with family and friends.”
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- gastronomic and business exhibitors bring local products closer to visitors
Another of the aspects in which the Minister of Agriculture of the Government of the Canary Islands focused was on the “extremely wide variety of beer” that is shown in Agrocanarias. «There are also very innovative products, such as algae, Canarian chocolates… I think it is important that consumers know our products and value them. This is the first step: get to know them and get closer to them, and then consume them on a daily basis », she expressed.
Also the smallest of the house will have their space. And it is that the Fair will develop different training workshops given by the Canarian Institute of Agrifood Quality aimed at children and which will have as protagonists honey, potatoes, mojos or oils, among other local products. Among the main dishes for this event are the presence of chef Javier Torres, from the Cocina Hermanos Torres restaurant in Barcelona, with two stars from the Michelin Guide. This professional will be there today, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m., sharing his gastronomic proposals, while tomorrow, at the same time, the judges of the popular television program MasterChef Samantha Vallejo-Nágera and Pepe Rodríguez, together with the Canarian chef Diego Schattenhofer , from the 1973 Taste Restaurant, from the Hotel Villa Cortés, will offer a live cooking show that will also be broadcast via streaming.
business opportunity
«All these companies that have their stands come to make their product known to the general and specialized public. I believe that it is one more showcase that they can use », pointed out Alicia Vanoostende in her statement to the media. For his part, the CEO of the public company Management of the Rural Environment of the Canary Islands, Pablo Zurita, highlighted the fact that this fair is going to tour the islands. “Today it is here, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the Alameda, an unbeatable place,” he said, before adding about the contest: “We really want to give it that sense of bringing the rural to the urban world, and I think we have achieved it ».
“I like it,” said Carmen de la Rosa when asked by Agrocanarias. She was another of the people who visited the different stalls this Friday after the presentation. “I came here with a friend, to the center of Santa Cruz, to do some shopping and we saw these billboards, we asked what it was and they explained to us that a fair with Canarian products, and we entered,” she explained. “The truth is that inside it is much larger than it looks from the outside and there are a lot of stalls.” Luisa González, her friend who accompanied her on her walk through the Fair, joined her words: “The thing that strikes me the most is that there is a bit of everything; in principle it looks good, especially to come for a walk and have a drink».
«This event, which will be present on all the islands (except La Graciosa), creates a platform where professionals from the agri-food sector can expand their network of contacts, improve relations with their suppliers, create new business opportunities and market their products in a direct way”, collects the press release, which also emphasizes that the event will be enlivened with live music by groups such as Los Lolas, Screensaver, Ni 1 Pelo de Tonto, Escuela de Calor or Miss MusicBand.
