As Saudi Arabia's food and beverage sector enters a new era defined by innovation, technology, and local production, the upcoming The Saudi Food Show 2026 and its manufacturing counterpart will shine a spotlight on the companies and solutions driving this transformation through a total of 14 awards celebrating excellence across products, packaging, manufacturing technologies, sustainability, and smart production.
The awards are organized under two complementary programs: the Excellence Awards at the Saudi Food Show and the Innovation Awards at the Saudi Food Manufacturing Show, together recognizing achievements that span the entire food value chain—from consumer products and creative packaging solutions to the technologies, processes, and sustainable approaches reshaping food manufacturing.
This year's Excellence Awards feature eight categories, including two new ones for the best sauce, seasoning, or preserve product and the best ready-to-eat product, alongside existing categories such as best beverage, best dairy product, best health and wellness product, best innovative packaging, best Saudi-made product, and best snack product.
Meanwhile, the Innovation Awards at the manufacturing show comprise six categories, with a newly introduced award for innovation in artificial intelligence and smart manufacturing, joining best ingredient innovation, best processing innovation, best packaging innovation, sustainable company of the year, and the "Made in Saudi" innovation of the year.
Shortlists are scheduled for release in the third week of September, after which finalists will undergo a live judging round, with winners announced on the second day of the twin events, which run from September 27 to 29, 2026, at Jeddah Superdome, bringing together over 1,000 exhibitors from more than 95 countries and over 25,000 industry professionals.