Seventy thousand attendees from 104 countries visited six adjacent exhibit halls, including one just for pizza. The Italian Pizza Centre was where we spent most of our time, but pizza products where found throughout the 70,000 square meter complex.

Attendees, exhibitors and management were all pleased with the pace and vitality of the show as SIAB experienced a 19 percent increase in attendance from the last SIAB in 2001. The next SIAB will be held in Verona in 2007. Italy, France and Germany take turns rotating Europe’s largest bakery industry event. Next year, France will host Europain 2005 in Paris April 16-20, and PMQ will be there exploring and searching for pizza news.

PMQ found many great pizza related products, designs and technologies, which we were not previously aware of, and many of these same companies will be coming to the New York Pizza Show in November. The European Italian Pizza Institute organized the first-ever international pizza roundtable where panel members from Japan, Italy, America and many other countries where able to share their insight about international pizza trends.