SIAL Paris, the huge international food show scheduled for Oct. 18-22, has been canceled. The next biennial show will be Oct. 15-19, 2022.

Over the past few months, “To enable such an international event to take place during this pandemic-hit period, we put together a multitude of initiatives to safeguard individual and collective safety and maintain the quality of business exchanges and inspiration,” said organizer Comexposium.

One alternative apparently was a hybrid event with more online interaction, as the Institute of Food Technologists did last week with the IFT Annual Meeting & Food Expo.

“However, the latest developments in the state of affairs worldwide and the uncertainties arising from them have led to a substantial shift in opinion among our audiences that we have consulted in recent days, with a majority now wishing to see the event postponed,” the announcement said.

Comexposium said they will “be offering a series of new events from October 2020 onwards dealing with major global issues, trends and innovation that are set to shape the food industry of the future.”

SIAL 2018 had record attendance of more than 310,000 visitors, 73% visitors from outside France (almost 200 countries), and 7,200 exhibitors from 119 countries.