Tradeshow Insight: Lunch! North 2025

March 2025 welcomed a fresh-faced entrant to the UK tradeshow scene, with food-to-go showcase Lunch! North marking its inaugural outing in the heart of Manchester’s bustling city centre.

Cramming over 400 stands – and over 12,000 visitors – into the main hall of the Manchester Central exhibition venue, Lunch! North (and its existing sister show Northern Restaurant & Bar) proved a worthy showcase for the North of England’s thriving cafe, food-to-go and restaurant sector, as the Lunch! brand expanded its horizons beyond its traditional London base.

Highlights of the co-located shows included thought-provoking presentations from industry leaders in the Keynote Theatre, culinary expertise from expert cooks in Chef Live, panels on leadership, brewing innovations, and mixology at the Pub & Bar Theatre, and Kuits NRB Top Fifty, recognising the most influential operators in Northern hospitality. Specific to Lunch! North was the Food-To-Go Leaders Panel, which hosted discussions with some of the cafe and restaurant sector’s biggest names.

Out on the show floor, a diverse range of exhibitors had set up stall, with major players such as Kellanova and Britvic (the latter promoting the Lipton brand’s recent foray into kombucha) rubbing shoulders with aspirant start-ups and SMEs.

Among the products on display, canned mineral waters particularly caught the eye, with a number of exhibitors touting product lines notable primarily for their simple branding and sustainability-oriented messaging. Indeed a focus on environmental benefits was a primary feature of many stands, with many referencing benefits such as packaging recyclability, traceable ingredients, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy and low water footprint. One brand of water in particular boasted use of aluminium bottles that were reportedly refillable, reusable and recyclable.

Elsewhere, health benefits remain the centrepiece for many brands, with protein-rich formulations and mood enhancement among the major themes. Highlights included a new line of breakfast cereal with tiger nuts as a hero ingredient, as well as a range of gummies and hot drinks made from functional mushrooms such as reishi, lion’s mane and chaga, and fruit and vegetable shots “boosted with baobab”.

Lunch! North, co-located with Northern Restaurant & Bar, will return to Manchester Central in March 2026.

Image source: Gama