66 | November 2015 | Hospitality BUSINESS NEWS BOOK NOW! Connect with trade prospects Educate and inspire your customers Build your brand awareness Introduce new products BE A PART OF NZ’S ONLY LIQUOR TRADE FESTIVAL! Top Shelf is coming in June 2016 as a part of Fine Food New Zealand and is inviting local and international wine, beer, spirits, craft drinks and suppliers to secure limited exhibition spaces now. With more than 6,400 hospitality, foodservice and FMCG visitors at Fine Food New Zealand in 2014, Top Shelf gives you the rare opportunity to share your products, new developments, tastings to the whole Kiwi industry in one place! Educate and inspire your customers Contact: Joel Bremner • jbremner@intermedianz.co.nz • 021 370 065 In addition to the well-known, big name liquor brands, the 2015 Top Shelf Festival held in Melbourne in August introduced many new names and products to the industry. With the New Zealand event coming up in June 2016, liquor producers and distributors have the opportunity to showcase their brands to over 6,400 foodservice, hospitality and FMCG trade customers at Fine Food New Zealand. It’s an opportunity like no other, and Australian exhibitors have said that prescence at Top Shelf has done wonders for taking their brands to the wider world. Kathleen Davies from Nip of Courage spoke of the Melboyrne Top Shelf experience as being overhwlemingly positive, saying: “we came again this year because our business exploded after last year when we got involved with Top Shelf. I’m so happy to endorse this show because it’s been honestly so good for us and our business”. Steve Finney of the Feral Brewing Company agrees, “Top Shelf has been a really good festival for us. Seventy five per cent of people hadn’t heard about our brewery before, so its good to just get a few out there in people’s hands”. Luke Hanzlicek, Suntory Brand Ambassador said that he and his team had to halt Laphroaig tastings, “because we used up all of our pre-batch cocktail, there was just a sea of people non-stop”. Fine Food New Zealand has a strong foodservice heritage in New Zealand and is the country’s largest hospitality and retail event with over 6,400 attendees in 2014. The Intermedia Group Managing Director, Dale Spencer says, “Fine Food New Zealand provides us with an incredibly successful vehicle to bring Top Shelf to life. With our Hospitality Business and FMCG Business magazines already leading the market in their sectors, it seems an obvious step to partner with North Port Events and support the Kiwi liquor industry with Top Shelf!” With a massive 400 square metres within Fine Food New Zealand, Top Shelf offers over 25 stands dedicated to the local liquor sector to present their products to the foodservice and hospitality trade. Spencer continues “We’ll also have a seated presentation area which will include Masterclasses, product launches and ‘Fight Club’, Top Shelf’s very own brand of mixology challenge. We hope to have a lot of fun with this and look forward to the local liquor guys getting in behind it!” INDUSTRY NEWS Exhibitors love the Top Shelf experience