Eruption affects Brussels exhibition

The European Seafood Exhibition (ESE) and its partner event the Seafood Processing Europe (SPE) are set to open in Brussels tomorrow and to last three days. As usual, a number of Icelandic companies will be taking part, including HB Grandi which has been at the ESE since 2005, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to HB Grandi.

‘The exhibition in Brussels has been highly successful over the last few years but this year there is some uncertainty over how many visitors there will be. The Eyjafjallajökull eruption has paralysed air traffic over Western Europe, and although the airports have re-opened, we hear that there have been flight cancellations. We'll just have to wait and see how many people turn up when the exhibition opens,' said HB Grandi's marketing manager Svavar Svavarsson, who left for Brussels with ten of the company's staff on Monday. Three other HB Grandi staff left for Brussels at the weekend to supervise erecting HB Grandi's stand at the exhibition. This year there will be 14 staff from the company there and HB Grandi can be found in Hall 6 at Stand 839-1.

According to Svavar Svavarsson, the trio who left at the weekend did not have an easy journey. They drove from Reykjavík to Akureyri to catch a flight on Friday evening and arrived in Brussels 24 hours later following stopovers in Copenhagen and Glasgow.

‘We were more or less ready to have to travel a similar route, and it was not until last night that there was some hope that Keflavík airport would be opened today,' Svavar Svavarsson said.

According to the ESE website, more than 1600 exhibitors from 140 countries are expected to take part. SPE is a smaller event that is dedicated primarily to processing equipment manufacturers, but there are still 200 companies form 22 countries expected to take part.