China International Beverage Industry Exhibition on Science & Technology is a process-equipment fair for drinks makers rather than a drinks fair. The floor follows a production line: water treatment, extraction, blending and mixing, filtration, sterilisation, homogenisation, then preform moulding, injection and blow moulding, filling and sealing, drying, labelling and coding, inspection, conveying, secondary packaging, palletising and warehousing, with the ingredients, additives and packaging materials that run through all of it.

The audience is technical. Plant engineers, production and quality managers, R&D staff and procurement teams from bottled water, tea and coffee drinks, juices, carbonated soft drinks, dairy drinks and functional beverage plants walk the halls to compare line speeds, run trials and shortlist suppliers, and integrators and packaging converters come for the same reason. Eight themed zones split the floor into ingredient and additive supply, front-end processing, injection and blow moulding, filling and sealing, labelling and coding, back-end packaging, unmanned retail, and brand and product innovation.