The 81st OMÉK has come to an end, nearly fifty thousand people visited

(Photo: AMC)

During the three-day event, almost 50,000 visitors were curious about the state of the Hungarian food industry and the latest agribusiness innovations, but the majority were most interested in artisan foods, high-quality children’s concerts, or native animals.

A variety of producers from the Carpathian Basin participated in the fair

“Where the countryside comes to life” – this is the slogan that the Agricultural Marketing Center announced the 81st OMÉK before the exhibition. During the long weekend of October 23, the weather was also favorable for OMÉK to be an attractive program opportunity for many. At the three-day event, nearly 200 small producers and about a hundred food industry enterprises from all over the Carpathian Basin presented themselves. OMÉK practically hosted Hungary’s largest farmers’ fair, where visitors could get to know and, of course, buy a huge variety of artisan foods – cheeses, jams, sweets, honey, meat and vegetable preparations, smoked goods. A good number of exhibitors came from across the border, so the visitors could also taste the special-flavored local products of Muravidék, Drávaszög, Vojvodina, Transylvania, Partium, Subcarpathia, and Highlands. In the organization of the Székely Farmers’ Association, producers with the Székely product trademark also exhibited their products. OMÉK’s partner country this year was Serbia, and they offered honey, their national drink, rakı, as well as wines and fruit juices, to the attention of the visitors.

Folk, traditional programs and children’s concerts entertained families on the two stages of OMÉK

The crate train, Marcsi Borbás’ interactive cooking show and gardening demonstration for children, as well as the yard featuring native Hungarian animals, were a great success. The fair’s lovely mascot, Oszkár OMÉK, was a great success at the event. – OMÉK is a celebration of Hungarian agriculture, as it is important to appreciate our rural roots, to appreciate the work that Hungarian farmers do every day and that we have a food industry that can safely supply the entire country with high-quality food – he said Péter Ondré, managing director of the Agrármarketing Centrum, about the three-day event.

Hungary’s largest food export development meeting took place at OMÉK

In addition to the audience-attracting programs, OMÉK was, of course, also aimed at the profession. The event provided the venue for Hungary’s largest export development conference, the Hungarian Food Summit held for the first time. At the two-day meeting of businessmen, 124 representatives of 87 foreign companies met with decision-makers of 46 Hungarian companies to discuss future business opportunities. – Many, around 1,000 negotiations took place during the program. I am happy to say that there is a Hungarian company that has even reached the point of concluding a deal with one of the purchasers. This is a huge result in view of the fact that this type of B2B, i.e. Business to Business, events are mostly about building relationships – expressed his joy Gergely Giczi, deputy managing director of the Agrármarketing Centrum, host of the Hungarian Food Summit. – The success of the program encourages us to organize this event not only every two years at OMÉK, but to bring it under the roof more often, even annually – expressed his hope.

AMC