A long-time allergy survivor and no stranger to international trade fares (in a past life) I was curious to see both the facilities at the Exhibition Centre and the range of innovation on offer in what is promoted as Europe’s greatest ‘Free From’ family day out. Tickets are free online if you book in advance. This show is both relatively small with around two hundred exhibitors and short, covering only two days – both of which worked as you only needed one day to cover everything on offer.
This well organised show began with well-mannered and well-informed security staff making the entrance a breeze as visitors either showed their phone tickets or went to the purchase desk, stopping by Schär, the main sponsors, to collect complementary gluten free snacks on the way. Arriving for the opening at 10am on Sunday and literally armed with my ‘press’ green band (which disappointingly only said ‘Exhibitor’) I confidently marched into the exhibition area with my game plan of walking the entire outside stands anti-clockwise then working my way left to right along each aisle. This fail-safe allowed for quick orientation and knowledge of food and drink stations, toilets (plenty, brand new, spotless with good wheelchair and baby changing access), goody-bag collection (who doesn’t appreciate a full-size box of gluten free cornflakes and Aveena mini samples?) and speaker areas in this case impressively named ‘Learning Theatre’. It also meant you could scan the room and return to the stands of most interest. Great plan. Works every time.
So… when I walked straight into a lovely young lady with a free sample of La-Roche-Posay moisturiser and a promise of a fix for my highly sensitive, allergic skin (that makes even the most hardened of Boots No 7 staff shrink behind their counters) my plan went out of the window and I headed straight to their stand. It was now about me. I’d come home. No-one was surprised or put off by any symptom, that seem to baffle dermatologists (after a six-month waiting list). Does your skin go red? Yes. Dry? Yes. Hives. Yeees. Watery eyes? OMG! YES. YES. YES. ‘We have something for that’, said the lovely Lisa in her doctor’s white coat. What? No way. A whole range within a range for people like me. It’s even got a special name, Toleriane. As if it couldn’t get any better Lisa adds, ‘I’m giving you the ULTRA, It calms as well’. Immediately I’m dreaming of no more puffy eyes or itchy morning skin. ‘It won’t work’, I sigh. ‘It will’, says Lisa. She ran the technical but I wasn’t listening, too busy dreaming of a life without multiple antihistamines and the daily misery of watching my face swell and glow like Rudolph’s nose. Then those magic words that everyone wants to hear at a trade fare, ‘take these samples’. Everyone loves the free stuff, in this case ‘free-from’ free stuff. I was buoyant for the rest of the day. No itch from the test patch on my neck. I’m a little bit in love with Lisa of the white coat, glowing skin and soothing voice.
I need a quick break to gather myself before going back to the beginning and following my plan. Food, food, food was the order of the day. No-one goes home hungry. Co-sponsored by Coeliac UK charity main brands such as Genius and Warburton jostled for customers with small start-ups such as gogoguts who deliver lovingly home-made gluten, lactose and nut free meals. Free wraps, cake samples galore and a whole range of cooking sauces and convenience foods for coeliacs on-the-go (little in-joke). Everything gluten and additive free. Families, with the best-behaved children I’ve ever seen, with faces lit up at the prospect of their first ever pork pie or doughnut. I pass swiftly by with a longing look, (even these food allergy pioneers can’t meet the challenge of my oral allergy to pepper, spices, lactose and nuts), and I land at Silicolgel. A smartly dressed young woman with a gorgeous Scottish lilt (Jill) says, ‘do you have IBS, Acid Reflux?’. Who? Me? ‘Of course, I do. All of the above.’ Plus, I’d left the house early and only had a coffee. Long story short, I bought some. Well she lives two miles from my brother in Kilmarnock and the MD is called Moray. It’s a tasteless liquid and working well so far, thanks for asking. Next, the lovely Cressida Langlands explained the FreeFrom Food Awards to me. Allergy is big business and begging for an industry standard and this woman has been working on it for ten years. Then Doulton explained their ceramic water filtration systems before yet another Lisa (from Cork) demonstrated her Salin.Plus salt air-filtration plug in. I’ve taken one for my asthmatic actor daughter to try out. I rounded off with two excellent talks on Eczema and Coeliacs in Winter (watched with charming couple Peter and Sandra from Halifax).
Bring on the Spring/Summer hayfever season show. I’ll see you there.
Reportage - Barbara Sherlock
on - 4/11/18
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