China trade fairs to find a distributor in 2026-27

Five China trade fairs put a foreign food and drink brand, or a beauty brand, in front of working distributors in the next eight months: the China Food and Drinks Fair in Nanjing from October 15, CIIE and FHC in Shanghai in November, then CBE and SIAL China in Shanghai next May. Go with a shortlist of stands. A bag of business cards won’t get you a distributor.

Every date below comes from an organizer, a Chinese government page or state media, and was checked on September 24, 2026. We’ll update the table when the spring 2027 dates go up. The Nanjing fair opens on October 15. That’s close enough that the meetings you book this week will be most of the meetings you get.

Why a fair works as a filter

Walk a Chinese food fair without a plan and you’ll leave with two hundred cards. Most of them will belong to people who can’t sell your product.

The numbers from the spring edition in Chengdu this March show why.

The 114th China Food and Drinks Fair (全国糖酒商品交易会), held March 26 to 28, 2026 in Chengdu, covered 325,000 square meters, hosted 6,615 exhibitors from more than 40 countries and regions and logged more than 410,000 industry visits. The 115th edition runs October 15 to 17, 2026 at the Nanjing International Expo Center. Source: Xinhua (新华网), March 2026. http://www.xinhuanet.com/food/20260331/272302f4d9c246caba268dca11a777f4/c.html

Nobody meets 410,000 people. What a fair does well is narrower, and it’s more useful. It puts the distributors who already buy your category in one building for three days, so you can test in a morning what would otherwise take a month of flights between Chengdu, Guangzhou and Shanghai.

So the search happens before you fly. The fair is where you check what the search turned up.

China trade fairs to find a distributor, 2026 to 2027

Dates are the organizers’ own. The crowd column describes who the organizer says came to the last edition.

The 29th FHC Shanghai Global Food Trade Show opens November 10 to 12, 2026 at the Shanghai New International Expo Center, with more than 3,000 exhibitors and more than 180,000 professional buyers expected. Source: FHC organizer release on Foodmate (食品伙伴网), August 2026. https://fsc.foodmate.net/show.php?itemid=750559

Phase 3 of the 140th Canton Fair runs October 31 to November 4, 2026. Source: Ministry of Commerce (商务部), Economic and Commercial Office in Kenya, July 2026. https://ke.mofcom.gov.cn/spgq/art/2026/art_34f0d0478b3946d2979f6af41b4035aa.html

SIAL China returns to the Shanghai New International Expo Center from May 18 to 20, 2027, and expects 180,000 professionals from 132 countries and regions. Source: SIAL China (西雅国际食品展), September 2026. https://www.sialchina.cn/topics/show-news/2027sialxiyazhandingdang.html

CBE’s 2027 dates are on the organizer’s site, chinabeautyexpo.com, checked September 24, 2026.

The 30th CBE, which closed May 14, 2026, hosted 3,200 companies from more than 40 countries and regions, with buyers from more than 120. Source: Cosmetic News (化妆品资讯), June 2026. https://www.cosmetic-news.net/archives/10203

Who is on the stand, and who you need to meet

Each fair draws a different crowd, and that changes how you work it.

At the China Food and Drinks Fair, buyers walk the halls and come to you. The organizer works hard to fill them with trade from outside the host province.

In Chengdu in 2026, an alliance of seven major food and drink wholesale markets brought several thousand large regional distributors, and close to 60% of professional visitors came from outside Sichuan. Source: Xinhua (新华网), March 2026. http://www.xinhuanet.com/food/20260331/272302f4d9c246caba268dca11a777f4/c.html

The same report describes a newer format worth seeking out. At the liquor channel sessions, the buyers take the stands and the producers visit them, one table at a time, carrying their own selection criteria and annual needs. For a foreign wine or spirits brand that’s the fastest hour of the fair.

CIIE flips the direction. You exhibit, and the buyers arrive in organized delegations, many of them put together by provincial and city governments.

The eighth CIIE drew 43 trading delegations and more than 700 sub-delegations. Its buyer corridor hosted 20 retail chains and leading ecommerce platforms plus 14 central state-owned companies, with more than 600 rounds of talks, and its key buyer selection sessions ran 1,300 rounds in food and farm goods, consumer goods and medical products. Its trade and investment matchmaking drew more than 5,000 companies and industrial parks. Source: China International Import Expo Bureau (中国国际进口博览局), November 2025. https://www.ciie.org/zbh/businessEx/expoNews/20251112/54275.html

Those delegation buyers are real, and they’re large. Many are state-owned importers or chains that carry hundreds of brands. A mid-sized brand can end up as one more line on their price sheet. Meet them. Just don’t sign the first one that says yes.

Then there’s the Canton Fair.

The 140th Canton Fair has 32,000 exhibitors, and more than 210,000 overseas buyers had pre-registered as of September 18, 2026. Source: Guangzhou Daily (广州日报), via 21st Century Business Herald (21世纪经济报道), September 2026. https://m.21jingji.com/article/20260918/herald/5607d878505d248317029f589cf56e80.html

Those 210,000 buyers fly in to buy from Chinese factories and ship the goods home. They are sourcing teams. The Chinese distributors who take on imported brands spend their autumn in Nanjing and Shanghai.

One more thing about stands. The person staffing a distributor’s stand is often from business development. In our experience the owner or category head, the one who decides on new brands, is back at the office. Ask by name for the one who signs.

Book the meetings before you book the flight

Chinese distributors run their business on WeChat. Get the contact before the fair, send a one-page brand sheet in Chinese (a PDF they can forward to the boss), and ask for a 30-minute slot on a named day. Buyers who won’t fix a slot beforehand tend to be hard to pin down on the day.

Then use what the organizer offers. FHC sets up one-to-one meetings between verified buyers and exhibitors before the show, and its site counts 173,143 professional visitors at the last edition, importers and distributors among them. CBE’s organizer runs a buyer club that it says opens doors to China’s master distributors and importers. The China Food and Drinks Fair has its own mini program, and buyers use it.

At the spring 2026 fair, the official mini program logged 1,238,200 visits and 28,066 online inquiries. Source: Xinhua (新华网), March 2026. http://www.xinhuanet.com/food/20260331/272302f4d9c246caba268dca11a777f4/c.html

CIIE runs the biggest matchmaking program of the five, as the delegation figures above show. Use it, but arrive with your own list of buyers to meet.

Watch the CIIE visitor deadline if you’re walking the show instead of exhibiting.

The ninth CIIE runs November 5 to 10, 2026 at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai). Overseas professional visitors must register online by 24:00 Beijing time on October 20, 2026 and pay by October 23. There is no on-site registration, and passes cost 200 RMB for November 6 to 10 or 100 RMB for November 8 to 10. Source: China International Import Expo Bureau (中国国际进口博览局), May 2026. https://www.ciie.org/zbh/cn/19BusEx/SerArea/ProAud/Q&A/20260527/61239.html

Timing matters for the list itself too. A Compass shortlist, drawn from TheChinaPath’s database of vetted China partners, usually takes two to three weeks from the brief (from Compass, September 2026). That’s tight for Nanjing if you start today. It’s comfortable for CIIE and FHC in November. Our guide to finding a distributor in China explains how the list gets built.

What to bring: RMB prices, registrations and a sheet in Chinese

Once the meetings are set, pack for them. These papers do most of the work on a stand. Leave one at home and the conversation stalls at the first question.

A price list in RMB. A euro ex-works price makes the buyer do the math before they can decide whether they’re interested. Give them an RMB price they can build a margin on and a suggested shelf price. If you haven’t worked out where your product lands on a Chinese shelf, our comparison of a China distributor against your own store walks through the cost lines.

Your registration status. Most first meetings turn on this question. For food, China’s Food Safety Law puts the duty on both sides of the deal.

Overseas food producers exporting to China must be registered with the customs authority, and the importer must file with it. Imported prepackaged food needs a Chinese label naming the country of origin and the domestic agent, or it cannot be imported. Source: Ministry of Commerce policy database (商务部), Food Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China (中华人民共和国食品安全法), Articles 96 and 97, as amended September 2025. https://policy.mofcom.gov.cn/claw/clawContent.shtml?id=104105

For beauty, the question is your NMPA status and who holds it.

Special cosmetics need NMPA registration before import, and imported general cosmetics need an NMPA filing. An overseas registrant or filer must appoint a Chinese legal person to handle registration or filing. Source: State Council Gazette (国务院公报), Cosmetics Supervision and Administration Regulation, articles 17 and 23, June 2020. https://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2020/content_5525087.htm

Bring the registration number if you have one. If you don’t, say where you are in the process and when you expect the number. Buyers will wait for a date. A vague “we’re working on it” tends to end the meeting.

A one-page brand sheet in Chinese. What the product is, what it sells for at home, where it sells, and what you want from a partner: which channels, which regions. Put your WeChat QR code on it.

After the fair: the check that separates a buyer from a trader

A trader buys a container and sells it to whoever pays. A distributor is building a channel, so it’s already planning the second order before the first one lands. At the stand the two look the same.

Start with the business license on the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, China’s official company register. The scope should cover import or wholesale of your category.

For food, go one step further and check two more things: the food license or filing, and the customs record.

China runs a licensing system for food production and sale. A company that sells only prepackaged food needs no license but must file with the local regulator. Customs publishes the lists of filed importers and registered overseas producers. Source: Ministry of Commerce policy database (商务部), Food Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China (中华人民共和国食品安全法), Articles 35 and 96, as amended September 2025. https://policy.mofcom.gov.cn/claw/clawContent.shtml?id=104105

Then ask for sell-out data from a comparable brand, with the name blacked out if they like. And visit a store they supply before you sign anything. These are the checks our distributor sourcing and management team runs before an introduction. Compass only files a partner after meeting it in person and vetting it on site.

Common questions about China trade fairs

Is CIIE worth it for a small brand?

It can be, as an exhibitor inside your country’s pavilion. The buyers come in delegations and include large retail chains and state-owned importers who buy at volume. Meet them to learn the price they need, then compare that with offers from regional distributors met at the food fairs.

Can I find a distributor at the Canton Fair?

Rarely. The Canton Fair is China’s export fair, and the more than 210,000 overseas buyers pre-registered for it come to source Chinese products. There is an import exhibition, but the distributors who build channels for imported brands spend their autumn at the China Food and Drinks Fair, CIIE and FHC.

Do I need a stand, or can I walk the fair?

Walking the halls is fine if every meeting is already booked. A stand helps when you want buyers to find you, and at the China Food and Drinks Fair plenty of them walk the aisles looking. For a first visit, a shared stand in your country pavilion is the usual way in, and it puts you next to brands the same buyers already know. Stand prices vary by fair and hall, so ask the organizer or your pavilion for a quote early.

When should I start booking meetings?

Four to six weeks before the fair is comfortable. A buyer who has seen your brand sheet and price list before the show comes ready to talk terms. Show it for the first time on the stand and you’ll mostly get a card back. For CIIE visitors, registration closes on October 20, 2026.

Get a Compass shortlist of distributors worth meeting at the fair