475,000 coffees, 260,000 sandwiches, are some of the figures for food and drink that will be consumed at the most important professional event in Barcelona. Because if the more than 80,000 congressmen who will attend this edition of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) have something in common, it is that they all eat. Between meetings, gatherings and receptions, the endless days make it impossible to find a moment to escape to snack on something. For this reason, the Gran Vía venue of Fira de Barcelona must offer a culinary proposal that satisfies everyone. The technology event of the year is also a colossal gastronomic event.
More than 2,000 companies will attend the congress that starts tomorrow, and will last four days, to present their technological innovations. All of them will have catering services for customers, guests and workers in their exhibitors. For them and the rest of the attendees there will also be 68 catering points distributed throughout the different pavilions of the venue where you can find dishes to satisfy any appetite.
Preparing food for so many diners is not an easy task. The kitchens lit their stoves a week ago and since then there has been no time to rest. At Gastrofira, the Fira catering company, they work in shifts 24 hours a day. Together with three other operators, Food
The logistical challenge is enormous. To cope with kitchen and service tasks, the work of more than a thousand people will be necessary. 180 cooks, 690 waiters and 80 transport and distribution workers in Gastrofira alone. The figures are quite spectacular in everything that surrounds the Mobile: almost half a million coffees, 260,000 sandwiches, 80,000 diners, close to 2,000 deliveries and around 10,000 services.
Food
Every morning at six, a truck leaves for the Gran Vía venue from the company's headquarters - in charge of catering events such as the MotoGP World Championship. There, a team receives the products separated and labeled by dish, meal and customer. In the case of Gastrofira, the kitchen is located next to the pavilions, so getting the food to the diners is a somewhat easier task.
In the central space of the Fira, 1,810 additional cubic meters of refrigeration have been contracted to be able to store all the food that is prepared and served in the Mobile. An area of 800 square meters has also been set up with tents for logistics tasks. A big setup for a gigantic kitchen service.
At the stands, everything is taken care of to perfection, including gastronomy: the customer is won over to the details. "We try to enhance the message that the client wants to transmit through food," explains the director of operations of Food
To design the menus, the different businesses have had to take note of the preferences or eating habits of the congressmen: 200 different nationalities allow for many variations. "Requests from vegans and vegetarians are becoming more frequent, as well as allergies to gluten," says Llorca. They also accommodate halal and kosher diets. In the seventy restaurants available you can find dishes of all kinds, from Mediterranean cuisine, Italian, fish
Large events like the MWC are a great opportunity for catering companies, which have been hit hard during the pandemic. "It was a very destructive period because in addition to losing a lot of money, we lost talent," laments Oscar Alsina, CEO of Food
Companies work with local products and increasingly incorporate responsible food management policies. The food surplus generated during the congress, to avoid waste, will be donated to different NGOs that are in charge of getting the food to local entities that distribute it.
