Corbion has relied on ELITeXPO for years to create booths that engage tradeshow attendees, so when they told ELITeXPO they wanted to do something grand for the International Baking Industry Exposition (IBIE), they were ready. “We already had a pretty nice booth developed for them,” says Richard Peterson, vice president of business development at ELITeXPO. “Collectively with our partners and the Corbion team we made it spectacular.”
Ashley Robertson, director of global marketing at Corbion, had a very specific idea in mind for their IBIE booth. “This show provided us with the first opportunity to connect in a way we did prior to COVID,” she explains. “We built the whole booth around the idea of connection. We wanted it to be an inviting place for people to be.”
IBIE is devoted to showcasing the products of companies that serve the grain-based food industry, so it was a logical place for Corbion, a company that makes an array of ingredients for, among other things, bakery items (think pizza, doughnuts and bread), to meet current and potential customers. “The overall idea was to provide an interactive environment,” says Peterson.
ELITeXPO ensured interaction in a variety of ways. It included interactive kiosks, high-top tables, seating for about 50, a board room and a full working kitchen. “Corbion had several chefs who produced all the food samples,” says Peterson. “The full service kitchen included cooking stations, stainless steel tables, refrigeration, freezers and plumbing.”
Once all that delicious food was prepared, it went to a counter at the customer-facing part of the booth that acted as a serving area. Peterson elaborates, “In addition to the food sampling area, we had a coffee and tea bar and an ice cream area.” The booth also included a social media area from which Corbion produced live social media broadcasts. “That was a new and unique element,” Peterson says. “People could tune in to hear live updates, and they seemed to really like it.”
Other spectacular elements that made the booth truly grand included neon signs that read “We preserve what matters,” and barn doors on the kitchen, media room and coffee bar. “The barn doors were more of a design element than practical,” Peterson says, but also explains that using sliding doors rather than swinging ones adds a space-saving element.
But the truly show-stopping part of the booth was, unbelievably, not the ice cream. Instead it was a series of four 6-foot-by-9-foot video walls, which Corbion used for the first time at IBIE. “The video walls made a huge impression on people and drew people in from many aisles over,” says Peterson. “The doughnut footage, in particular, was amazing.”
Robertson agreed that the video walls were impressive. “It was so different from the other booths at the show,” she says. But her favorite part was behind the scenes.
“I loved the kitchen,” she says. “We had top-class chefs turning out these incredible samples, and people loved them. Visitors to the booth literally could eat through breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
Peterson says he heard people visiting the booth share that it was the best booth in the show. “The feedback was really good,” he enthuses. “There were certainly more expensive booths at IBIE, but I didn’t see any booths that were busier.”
Robertson says that the Corbion booth was definitely the place to be. “The booths around us loved sharing aisle space with us because they captured all of our overflow traffic,” she says. “It was almost challenging to move people through our booth and into others because they really enjoyed being there.”
“I joked with people that we should have charged rent!” she says with a laugh.
Connection, comfort and delicious, freshly made food? No wonder everyone wanted to stay!
