On Friday January 17, Kaspars Gerhards, the Minister for Agriculture, visited the Latvian joint stand at the 85th exhibition of food, agriculture and horticulture International Green Week 2020 (Internationale Grüne Woche 2020) in Berlin (Germany) and met our entrepreneurs.
On the initiative of the exhibition organizers, every participating country was asked to present a unique national product at the exhibition. Latvia chose hemp. In old times, various products, made of hemp, were used daily, and now – after several decades of oblivion – hemp seeds or nuts are again appreciated. Roasted hemp nuts, valuable oil, hemp tea and beer, nourishing roasted hemp spread and some products with added hemp – flat cake, cheese, butter, chocolate, sweets with hemp, hemp cheese cookies, etc. All this is exhibited at the stand and Latvian producers tell the visitors about these products, offering to taste them.
“As to its nutritional value, hemp is a unique product and the diverse usages of hemp are far from being exhausted. Latvian producers will offer a vast assortment of this valuable product at the exhibition,” said Kaspars Gerhards, the Minister for Agriculture, having visited the Latvian joint stand of food producers. “Looking at the produce, exhibited at the stand by Latvian producers, in general, I am proud of the ability of our food industry to create the high quality products with excellent taste that can be offered to domestic consumers as well as a vast range of international consumers. Some of Latvian products are favored by exhibition visitors who look particularly for them at the stand and this is the highest recognition.”
Latvia has been participating in the exhibition “Green Week” for the 25th time. This time the area of the joint stand is 110 square meters, where the following companies will exhibit and sell their products: SIA “Rozīne” will participate with its product “Skrīveru mājas saldējums”(Skrīveri home-made ice-cream), along with traditional ice-creams, offering ice-creams of particular recipes, amongst others, with added hemp, SIA “Skrīveru pārtikas kombināts” – with diverse assortment of sweets “Gotiņa”, the farm “Rogas” from Madona region and its owner Sandris Akmans with bee-keeping products and berries prepared in different ways. SIA “Plūkt” will present different types of tea of herbs, gathered in Latvia, an individual entrepreneur “I.R. Avots” will offer honey mixtures, the farm from Talsi region “Kurzemnieki” – sweet snacks made of apples, pumpkins and other plants but SIA “Rīta putni” has prepared different quail egg products. For the first time, in Berlin, home-made wines will exhibit SIA “Windau Wines”. At the joint stand, SIA “Berds” will sell produce, which German people has already appreciated, from such Latvian companies as SIA “Dona”, AS “Tukuma piens”, SIA “Rīgas piensaimnieks”, AS “Rīgas piena kombināts”, SIA “Rēzeknes gaļas kombināts”, SIA “Aibi”, SIA “Zentenes zivju kombināts”, AS “Brīvais Vilnis”, SIA “Gamma-A”, SIA “Karavella”, SIA “Brāļu alus” and SIA “Ilgezeem”.
To attract more visitors to and popularize the Ethnographic Open-Air Museum of Latvia and to show ancient crafts at the stand, a hostess Ilze, whom we know as Doņu Ilze, will bake bread on the spot, other hostess Kristīne from the Ethnographic Open-Air Museum will help her. Representatives of the association “Lauku ceļotājs” will offer bread snacks thus introducing the exhibition visitors to the culinary tourism project “Road of Rye”. Craftsmen from the Ethnographic Open-Air Museum will show their skills in amber treatment, carving of wooden spoons and bowls. SIA “LIvonijas dzintars” will supplement exhibits at the joint stand with its cosmetics where powdered amber is added. There will also be long ago widely-used but now forgotten products with added hemp – flat cake, cheese, chocolate and “Gotiņa” with hemp, hemp and cheese cookies, hemp beer and hemp oil, roasted hemp and hemp spread, etc.
The Latvian joint stand is organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Economics (AREI thus popularizing unique products of Latvia, and attracting visitors’ attention, rising further interest in Latvian foods, tourism opportunities and national traditions.
The exhibition “Green Week” was founded in the “golden 20s” of the last century and this year it will open its door for the 85th time for visitors from January 17 to 26. According to the data annually collected by the exhibition organizers, the total number of visitors is growing (it has exceeded 400 000) of whom 85 000 are representatives of trade. The number of participants is also growing (about 1800 from 61 countries). In 2020, Croatia will be the partner country of the International Green Week Berlin. The official web site of the exhibition is International Green Week 2020.
Alongside with the exhibition, the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture 2020 (GFFA) is held, and this year emphasis is on the trade as a provider of food for the mankind, produced by safe, diverse and sustainable farming.