Asia's biggest ice cream industry expo opens in Tianjin

Asia's biggest ice cream and frozen food industry exposition kicked off in north China's Tianjin Municipality on Thursday.

The three-day event features 1,400 booths in a total display area of 35,000 square meters. This year's exposition has attracted nearly 400 domestic and overseas manufacturers of ice cream, frozen food and related production and transportation facilities.

China previously hosted two ice cream industry expositions, with one in Shanghai and another in Tianjin. Organizers announced in June they would merge the two events to reduce excessive competition.

"Ice cream is a young industry in China," said Zhu Nianlin, deputy secretary general of China National Light Industry Council, adding that 3.06 million tonnes of ice cream was produced in China last year.

"We hope the new expo can build a bridge for exchanges between domestic and overseas firms and help domestic firms learn advanced international techniques," said Zhu.

Zhang Xiaohong, head of the organizing committee of Ice Cream China, said currently the world's biggest ice cream industry expo is in Italy.

"We hope that we can expand the expo space to 50,000 square meters in three to five years to make Ice Cream China the world's biggest," said Zhang. Endi