What will happen to Expo 2020's F&B outlets now the six-month event is over?

Now that we've reached the official close of Expo 2020 Dubai, the question on everybody’s mind is “what's next?”

TGP International was appointed as the F&B consultant and commercial manager for all the non-pavilion food outlets in the Expo 2020, giving us a unique insight into what the culinary future holds for the venue.

To learn more about what the future holds for the over 200 F&B outlets that were operational throughout the six-month world fair,?Arabian Business ?sat down with?our founder and chairman, Simon Wright.

How did you go about selecting the F&B outlets operating at Expo? Why did you choose to launch your new brands there?

There are different reasons. Festival Garden was a need that we identified specifically for the world fair where we wanted to create a wonderful outdoor area that was very family friendly and flexible – we had events ranging from family events to festivals and concerts and we changed the food trucks every month.

For the other brands, we wanted to have a mixture of sort of local favourites so tourists to Dubai get the chance to experience some of the wonderful local chefs and restaurants that are here. But we also wanted those from the region to try some restaurants for the first time at Expo. So we reached out to lots of colleagues and friends in the industry and told them about the opportunity to be part of the action and do a proper restaurant for six months. Luckily, a whole host of them said yes and we’ve been operating three at the Expo.

Alkebulan is probably our most unique concept and is something that we had been working on as a team for a couple of years before with our partner Alexander Smalls (below), who’s the famous opera singer turned chef.

What’s the future of the non-pavilion F&B brands in Expo now the global event is over?

There are still quite a lot of decisions to be made in terms of legacy. As it stands today, there’s a plan around what is called District 2020, the human-centric city of the future.?My view is to always deal with the hard facts in front of me, but also to have all of our teams on our toes ready to move quickly if anything changes.

We are in talks with a number of the brands for them to be part of District 2020 in the future, especially those that have been a great hit – we’ve got lots of conversations happening. We hope and we’re quietly confident that we’ll keep a number of the brands and Alkebulan is pretty much nailed on that it will be staying. It’s such a beautiful venue and we wanted it to remain where it was born. As we grow the brand, which is our plan to take it international, we want to constantly honour the fact that we were were supported by Expo.

Can you tell me more about Alkebulan’s expansion plans?

We are back raising investments which is a lot easier to do than it was two years ago. Our plan is to open the next one in New York then probably London and then expand to other cities in the US and Europe.

One of the key things we should mention about Alkebulan is that it is also a social enterprise where we will have a hospitality training programme. We also want to develop a retail line that will work directly with farm collectives in Africa helping them create sustainable businesses.

Looking ahead a few months from now, do you think consumers would be interested to visit District 2020 just to dine there?

A lot of the plans for exactly what’s going to happen and what the place-making strategy will be are still under discussion.

The setup, location, logistics, transport infrastructure are all brilliant and meant for people to come and live there in the future. What’s going to be the interesting for me, and this is just a personal opinion, what’s going to be the USP of that product. I’m being very biased here but hospitality is so huge in the UAE, and so huge now in the Gulf region, that this is a brilliant opportunity to take advantage of this almost new city, given its size.

I think it would be a big missed opportunity if we didn’t make hospitality really a key part and a key driver for what the area is all about.

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