The 114th China Food & Drinks Fair Opens in Chengdu

Amid warm spring breezes and pleasant aromas permeating Chengdu, the 114th China Food & Drinks Fairgrandly opened in Chengdu on March 26, 2026. As the world’s largest professional exhibition for food and alcoholic beverages, this year’s Fair is themed “After Spring Festival, Come the Spring Food Fair”. It is being held from March 26 to 28 at two venues in Chengdu — the Western China International Expo City and the New Century Global Center & Exhibition Center — with a total exhibition area of 325,000 square meters, bringing together more than 6,600 exhibitors from over 40 countries and regions worldwide.

More than 500 people attended the opening ceremony, including Bai Yong, Deputy Party Secretary and General Manager of COFCO Corporation; Chen Shuping, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Chengdu Municipal Committee and Mayor of Chengdu; Chen Zhiyong, Vice Mayor of Chengdu; as well as academicians, experts, industry association leaders and exhibitor representatives.

In his address at the opening ceremony, Bai Yong extended a warm welcome to guests from all sectors attending the Fair. He noted that this edition closely follows the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee, deeply integrates industrial strengths with Chengdu’s comprehensive cultural, commercial, sports and tourism resources, and launches a series of urban consumption events. It stimulates consumption vitality through high-quality supply and unlocks domestic demand potential via scenario innovation, achieving mutual empowerment between the grand industry event and urban consumption.

Known as the “Granary of Tianfu” and a “City of Gastronomy”, Chengdu is a core production area of Sichuan liquor, a western consumption hub, and boasts profound food culture and robust industrial vitality — highly consistent with the Fair’s mission of “promoting consumption, invigorating circulation and boosting industries”. As the organizer of the National Food & Drinks Fair, COFCO will continue to join hands with Chengdu to deepen cooperation across multiple areas, and promote high-quality regional economic development through government-enterprise collaboration.

Chen Shuping stated in his speech that the National Food & Drinks Fair is the world’s largest comprehensive exhibition for the food and alcoholic beverage industry, playing a vital role in smoothing economic circulation, expanding consumption, and advancing high-level opening-up. In particular, this year’s Fair further highlights the concept of “exhibition-city integration” by launching the nearly month-long “2026 Spring Fair Season”urban consumption promotion campaign. This not only marks an unprecedented new model of exhibition-city integration for the National Food & Drinks Fair, but also creates an exclusive city-wide consumption gala tailored for global merchants and consumers.

Adopting a “one city, two venues” format, the Fair differentiates the functions of the two centers for the first time: the Western China International Expo City focuses on food products, while the New Century Global Center & Exhibition Center specializes in alcoholic beverages and drinks.

Regarded as a “barometer” and “bellwether” of the global food and beverage industry, the Fair captures trends of industrial transformation and actively responds to market demand. It features 12 major exhibition zonesand 26 special category sections, and for the first time sets up two new exhibition areas for green agriculture, food packaging and supply chains, as well as nine special zones including own brands & industrial services and innovative food products. These arrangements not only accurately reflect the perse needs of current food and beverage consumption, but also continue to guide the high-quality development of the food and beverage industry through a full-chain innovation ecosystem.

During the event, more than 20 industry conferences, forums and matchmaking activities — such as the Food & Beverage Industry Development Conference — will be held intensively, alongside various competitions. The Fair further practices the hosting philosophy of “boosting industries through exhibitions and vitalizing cities through industries”. The “2026 Spring Fair Season”continues to deliver mutual benefits for industrial development and urban economic growth.

Upholding its important mission of facilitating production-marketing connections and economic and trade exchanges in the food and alcoholic beverage industry, the Fair leverages its platform effect to unlock consumption potential in the sector. Guiding industrial transformation with the latest consumption trends, it injects strong impetus toward a promising start to the 15th Five-Year Plan period.