Conxemar 2026 brings 800 seafood exhibitors to a full Vigo

Conxemar 2026, the 27th International Frozen Seafood Exhibition, opens on 6 October in Vigo with more than 800 exhibitors from close to 50 countries expected, according to Europa Press. Every one of the 37,000 square metres at the Ifevi fairground is taken.

Conxemar 2026 runs until 8 October and is closed to the public: only trade visitors are accredited. Last year's edition set the bar at 812 exhibitors from 46 countries, 30,405 visitors and €831.7 million in deals closed on the floor, a sum that the local daily Atlántico puts at about 4.5 per cent of the annual turnover of Spain's fish and seafood industry.

What the FAO congress will discuss

A fair that closed €831.7 million in deals last year now has nowhere left to put a stand.

The trade days are preceded on Monday 5 October by the 14th Conxemar FAO MAPA International Congress, held at the Afundación building in central Vigo under the title “Smart blue leadership”. Spain's minister of agriculture, fisheries and food, Luis Planas, is due to open it at 9 am and to sign a memorandum on fisheries and aquaculture cooperation with Namibia.

The programme has four sessions: fair conditions in international seafood trade, artificial intelligence and digital traceability, consumer habits, and innovation, including the commercial potential of seaweed. Speakers include Jingjie Chu of the World Bank, Miguel Bernal of the FAO's General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean and Shakuntala Thilsted, the 2021 World Food Prize laureate. The day closes with an interview with María Neira, formerly of the World Health Organization.

The agenda meets a market in which price weighs as much as supply. In September the FAO Food Price Index reached its highest level since November 2022, and seafood is one of the lines that restaurant buyers watch most closely.

Conxemar 2026 has outgrown its venue

The limit to growth is physical. Atlántico reported on 1 September that Conxemar's president, Eloy García, wants at least one new pavilion and a wider footbridge at Ifevi before exhibitors have to be turned away, and that a shortage of hotel beds pushes some delegations to Santiago de Compostela and Ourense.

The public gets one evening. On 2 October the third Conxemar Fest took over Vigo's Puerta del Sol with five Galician bands, chosen from 168 entries, competing for €10,000 in prizes, and three food trucks serving tapas made from frozen fish and shellfish. Galicia's regional minister for the sea, Marta Villaverde, called it a “perfect alliance between music and gastronomy” to interest younger people in seafood.

Whether that works will not show up in this week's order books. The figure to watch when Conxemar 2026 closes on Thursday is whether deals pass last year's €831.7 million in a hall that cannot add a single stand.