As its aims demonstrate, this Expo - dedicated to food safety, security and quality- is intended to stimulate the regional and national economies and showcase Italy\'s - and Milan\'s - outstanding qualities when it comes to food.

The quality of the Italian cuisine is well known and appreciated all over the world. Italian food is loved because it is healthy; it is authentic, because Italians\' passion for the quality and taste of food, their regional cuisine and produce, the country\'s biodiversity and the health of its people and animals are all part of the Italian culture of living well. The Italian food industry (the nation\'s second largest) includes no fewer than 36,000 family firms and medium-sized companies, half a million workers, and an annual turnover of €100bn. This ingredient of Italian excellence stems from centuries spent honing farmers\' skills, refining production methods and improving agriculture management methods.

Milan and its territory represent the ideal candidate, in Italy and in the world, for Expo 2015 because together they:

• are situated at the centre of an area of about 10 million inhabitants, such as London or Paris

• produce 10% of the domestic GDP, a level equal to Brussel\'s or Madrid\'s have a per-capita revenue that is almost twice the domestic one and an unemployment level as low as half of Italy\'s as a whole.

• register 40% of the new innovation patents, equal to Boston\'s annual production sell 10 million tickets yearly for art, music and cinema shows, based on the same population rate of Berlin, Amsterdam, Barcelona

• house 650 fashion show-rooms, in competition with Paris and New York are the Italian center for voluntary service and the tertiary industry

Expo theme: Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life

On show at Expo 2015: the great issues of sustainable development.
Expo 2015 will be an extraordinary universal event displaying tradition, creativity and innovation in the business of food. It will bring together many themes that have already been handled by this event in the past, and set them out anew in light of new global possibilities whose common core is the idea that everyone on the planet should have access to food that is healthy, safe and sufficient.
Workshop and debate themes include:

1. Improving food quality and security: the security of having enough food to live on, and an assurance that the food is healthy and the water drinkable;

2. Ensuring healthy and high-quality nutrition for all human beings, doing away with the hunger, drought, infantile mortality, and malnutrition that still afflict 850 million people on this planet, and extirpating famine and pandemic disease;

3. Preventing the new epidemics and diseases of our time, including obesity, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, by championing practices that have proven to be effective;

4. Promoting innovation in research, technology, and business practices along the entire food supply chain to improve the nutritional value, conservation, and distribution of foods;

5. Providing education in proper nutrition and encouraging more healthy lifestyles, especially among children, adolescents, the disabled, and the elderly;

6. Enhancing the value of cultural and ethnic heritage as expressed in culinary traditions.

Food is vital for the sustainable development of good quality, reliably available nutrition, respect for the fundamental life needs of every human being, and health.

The genuine quality and availability of agricultural foodstuffs is, first and foremost, one of society\'s fundamental needs. It is also a valuable economic market. Territory plays a central role here because the farming and livestock-raising traditions of local peoples and communities developed over the course of thousands of years of experimentation and experience are part and parcel of genuine, high quality food. Today these traditions benefit from the wise application of scientific and technological innovations.
Acting at different points along the entire food supply chain from farm to table, public institutions, private firms, charitable associations, NGOs, and consumer and producer representatives all play a role in promoting the development of the world\'s food-related economic and social systems.

Expo 2015: the frontiers of science and technology:

• the preservation of biodiversity, protecting the environment as agriculture\'s ecosystem, safeguarding food quality, safety, and reliability, and educating people in nutrition for health and personal well-being;

• identifying the best tools for monitoring, control, and innovation (starting with forms of biotechnology that do not threaten the environment or health), so as to ensure the availability of healthy, nutritious food and water that is safe for drinking and irrigation;

• securing new dependable sources of food in parts of the world afflicted by famines, where agriculture is under-developed or threatened by deforestation, desertification, or drought, or where inland and marine fish stocks are dwindling.

Expo 2015: a world of opportunities for promotion and communication

Expo 2015 offers a great communication and promotion venue for primary producing communities, farmers, food firms, the logistics and distribution chain, the restaurant and catering industry, research centres, and any company seeking:

• to make the most of innovation and production technologies that generate a healthy food product;

• to do business in food preparation and conservation, enhance the professional skills of their managers and staff, and improve their communication with the consumer;

• to guarantee the quality of their food by using appropriate protection and monitoring systems to combat counterfeiting and adulteration.

For more information visit the official website