Sigep 2016: what are you missing if you don't come to Rimini

2023 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:20

I don't know about you, but I have never liked competitions: it will be that they remind me of failures in volleyball, in the high school gym.

To everything, however, there is an exception and in this case the exception is called Sigep, the most important event in the world in the artisan ice cream and confectionery sector that will open its doors to professionals from 23 to 27 January.

What do competitions have to do with it? Let's take a step back.

Now in its 37th edition, Sigep puts on the table raw materials, ingredients, plants, equipment, furnishings, even packaging, all the news from the world of pastry and bakery.

Do you remember the cave of Ali Babà? Here, that: only instead of rubies you will find in it ice cream creamed with salted caramel and pistachio from Bronte (if it does not exist it should exist).

Around all this good things, there are those that in my eyes make it a sort of "Games without borders" for gourmets and simple gourmands: international competitions, championships, cups. Like the Olympics, or the World Cup.

Only they are played with sugar, milk, and there is no need to grab the ball on the fly. You sweat the same, yes.

So let's take a look at the fair through the lenses of these World Sugar Championships, dreaming of becoming the Beckhams of pralines, the Del Piero of fiordilatte.

The 10 unmissable moments of the fair are selected for you below, depending on which sport you are most fond of.

FREE ICE CREAM

This year the news is that Sunday 24 January at 12:30 Dissapore rewards 100 best artisan ice cream parlors in Italy of its 2015 ranking, in Hall C7, Carpigiani stand.

So, an appointment at Rimini Fiera: the award ceremony will end with an unprecedented jam session between ice cream makers in which Gianfrancesco Cutelli of De Coltelli ice cream parlor in Pisa and Andrea Soban of Soban ice cream parlor in Valenza (Alessandria) will prepare a new flavor of ice cream live, just for the occasion.

Come and visit us.

Sigep is also the only fair in the world where ice cream is present throughout the supply chain, from milk to cones: the "Gelato World Cup", which takes place every two years, could not fail to return to its 7th edition.

The rules of the game are these: 14 teams from 5 continents (we are there, of course, but there are also Uruguay, Poland and Singapore, so to speak), 70 competitors, 14 international judges, 7 tests.

Well, the competition is not something for people with low cholesterol and the tests are many, seven, it almost seems to be under the hatch to get to the Philosopher's Stone. Candidates must prepare: a cup with assorted flavors, an ice cream cake, four types of chocolate ice cream mignons, three hot finger foods to combine with a gourmet ice cream, an ice sculpture and a base of ice to add flowers and fruit that not even the Arcimboldo, a sculpture in crunchy.

And then, well, the Mystery Box, as if they were at Masterchef: who will create the best ice cream flavor starting from the ingredient assigned at the beginning of the challenge?

The clock is ticking, our mouth is watering.

OBSTACLES AND CUPCAKES

Of course, the pastry could not miss. Indeed, Sigep is probably the place where the largest concentration of companies in the sector is temporarily located. But what will the Masters challenge each other in?

The Pastry Arena will host the “Seniores Italian Pastry Championship”: to participate you must be 22 years old and who knows if this is not the first step in a flight to the stars.

For those of the sugar tour, in fact, the race represents a very important stage. This year's theme is Ikebana, and I already imagine orchids made of sugar, butter and grains.

Also at home in Sigep is the third edition of “The Pastry Queen”, the World Pastry Championship, held every two years, reserved for women from all over the world. And when I say the whole world I really mean the globe, from Russia to Taiwan.

Competitors will compete to the sound of coffee-scented desserts by the glass, chocolate sweets, jewel mignon and sculptures in sugar and pastillage.

Here, too, the theme points to elegance, rigor and care: dance, because under the ballerina shoes there are bandages just as behind the sugar sculptures there are people making the so-called bunch of flowers.

100 METERS AND CHOCOLATE

Never understood why the food of the gods should be a dangerous temptation. Maybe cellulite has something to do with it, maybe it's just a question of Catholic morality.

Be that as it may, at Sigep anyone who produces chocolate, anyone who invents pralines, anyone who has created a new machine to transform cocoa into chocolate (go over Harry Potter) or into waterfalls like Willy Wonka's, well, no doubt about it, has found his kingdom.

Kingdom to be conquered by jazz: "The Star of Chocolate", in fact, is the international chocolate competition aimed at master chocolatiers who in this edition will be able to be inspired by jazz music and reinterpret the hot chocolate, create innovative éclairs and sculpt chocolate like new Michelangelo.

I have never met Willy Wonka, but these are good people, and you can really meet them.

COFFEE RELAY

The best of world productions can only mean one thing: the aroma of coffee to guide you towards the finals of the competitions, part of the prestigious “World Coffee Events”.

There will be dozens of bartenders competing for more than one title, putting themselves to the test without mercy. 4 espressos, 4 cappuccinos and 4 espresso drinks in 15 minutes: this is the test of the "Italian Barista Cafeteria Championship".

Tough?

Not least the “Italian Latte Art Championship”: the art-baristas will have 10 minutes to prepare four drinks based on coffee and milk, equal to two by two. In short, if on the one hand you draw an orchid, the orchid on the other coffee will have to be a twin.

Among the protagonists of the coffee section, the ten finalists of “Barista & Farmer“, the coffee talent show that will take place in Brazil in May.

For ten days, ten coffee lovers will live like a picker, a farmer, working for a coffee company.

They will wake up at dawn, spend the morning on the plantation and in the afternoon they will attend the "Barista & Farmer" Academy, with the best experts in the sector.

Interesting project, but certainly not what you think of when you say "plantation".

SYNCHRONIZED FLOURS

Bread, pasta, gourmet pizzas, an oven that will continuously produce focaccia, ciabatta and savory pies, viennoiseries, pastry chefs who will decorate panettone and doves. Flour and bread-making will be the queens of one of the faces of the Sigep cube.

An important face, mind you.

So much so that even here we challenge ourselves, in the international competition "Bread in The City", all in the name of organic and high quality. To compete 8 teams, from Mali to Switzerland, which will bake naturally leavened breads, viennoiseries in leavened and puff pastry, baked cakes and shortcrust pastry, fancy pizzas, sandwich clubs, loaves, milk mignon.

The winners will be able to compete in "AB-Tech Expo", the biennial fair that brings together the entire Italian white art sector.

THE SUGAR CHICKS

Bonus track for the very young, in this world of pralines, is "SigepGiovani": always dedicated to vocational schools, this year celebrates 25 years.

The theme is chocolate and the 12 participating schools will have to compete in four hours with the preparation of chocolate mignon, strollers, pralines and chocolate sculptures. As a reward, no doubt, a lot of training so that the chicks soon become Platiniums.

SUMMING UP

As if Willy Wonka's factory and Honeydukes (always Potter) shop merged into one place.

As if athletics had worn an apron and dusted the slopes of the whole world with sugar and cocoa: if you have made your profession of ice cream and flour, well, Rimini and Sigep welcome you with open arms from 23 to 26 January, from 9.30 to 18.00; on the 27th, reduced hours.

The ticket costs a lot, 55 euros without invitation or reduction.

But for Honeydukes it's worth it. Or not? Let us know.