José Luis Bonet leaves the presidency of Alimentaria and hands over the baton to Antoni Llorens

The question of who will replace José Luis Bonet at the helm of the Alimentaria Fair, which he had presided over since 2000, has finally been cleared. A few days after his re-election as president of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, Fira de Barcelona announced this Thursday the appointment of Antoni Llorens as president of the largest food sector fair in Southern Europe.

This is a natural succession, as Llorens, president of Serunion, is one of the people who has been most involved in the Alimentaria organizing committee and has spent more than two decades leading Restaurama, one of Alimentaria's sub-shows that has experienced significant growth, becoming the third most important.

José Luis Bonet had already announced his decision to step down as president of Alimentaria after the fair's edition scheduled for 2020. However, the pandemic caused his mandate to be extended until last April, when the event achieved a successful edition, with nearly 100,000 visitors from 149 countries and 3,000 exhibiting companies, 29% of which were international. By statutes, the Alimentaria organizing committee is dissolved after each fair, and initially, it was planned to agree on the renewal before the summer holidays. However, it was not until today that Alimentaria made Llorens' appointment official.

In addition to José Luis Bonet, other significant members who have marked an era and to whom a good part of the fair's success must also be attributed, such as Ignacio Ferrero, Javier Robles, or José Carlos Lacasa, are leaving the organizing committee. Thus, Llorens will have to lead the organization of Alimentaria 2024 with a partially renewed committee and hand in hand with the fair's general director, Toni Valls.

"The committee that is now ending has left a very strong mark and has shielded the fair in every sense. Their work has been exemplary and unique in the fair world," emphasizes Valls, who has set the goal of "preserving the legacy" of the outgoing committee and "ensuring the transfer" so that Alimentaria continues to be a success in the future.

Bonet assumed the presidency of Alimentaria in July 2000, which means that throughout these 22 years he has held the highest responsibility of the show in its last ten editions, since it is held every two years. A good part of this period coincided with the presidency of Fira de Barcelona (2004-2018) and of the Freixenet group, of which he is now honorary president. Born in Barcelona in 1941, Bonet, who for 49 years was a professor of Political Economy and Public Finance at the Faculty of Law of the University of Barcelona, acceded to the presidency of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in November 2014 and has now just been re-elected for a new term.

The new president of Alimentaria, Antoni Llorens, has highlighted Bonet's "exemplary leadership and maximum involvement" and has emphasized "the pride it means to institutionally represent a show with such international repercussions, which defends the interests of all actors in this industry and its value chain."

Llorens is an industrial engineer from the UPC, MBA from IESE and the Graduate School of Business of the University of Chicago. Since 1997, he has held the position of president and general director of the catering company Serunion, which he joined as CEO in 1992. In addition, he presides over the Food Service Spain association since 2013 and led Food Service Europe (FERCO) between 2006 and 2010. Llorens also presides over the Prevent Foundation ---which works for the social and labor inclusion of people with disabilities and the promotion of occupational safety and health--- and is a trustee of the Banc dels Aliments Foundation, and of the Enriqueta Villavecchia Pediatric Oncology Foundation.