Following Anchor Food Professionals’ (AFP) debut at Food & Hospitality Asia (FHA) in 2024, Fonterra returned to the 2026 edition with Mongoose to create a more immersive brand experience for professional customers, chefs and partners.
FHA 2026 was the largest in a decade, bringing its Food & Beverage and HoReCa shows together on one platform. Over the course of five months, Mongoose developed and delivered a 90sqm activation designed to showcase AFP’s products, chef community and ‘performance partnership’ proposition.
The challenge
AFP wanted to be showcased on the world stage and reinforce its position as a leading dairy food service brand and influential culinary voice. Building on its previous activation in 2024, the brief was to create a more immersive experience for customers while showcasing AFP’ssuite of four product categories: cream, butter, cheese and cream cheese.
The challenge was delivering all of this within a 90 sqm footprint. The space needed to accommodate a professional kitchen, customer and networking areas, product touchpoints and engagement opportunities, while meeting the high standards set by AFP’s sales and marketing teams.
The activation also needed to authentically demonstrate the performance of AFP’s products,bringing AFP’s ‘performance partnership’ proposition to life through its network of chef ambassadors.
The solution
Mongoose created a stand concept built around AFP’s New Zealand provenance, taking visitors on the product journey from green pastures to professional kitchens. The customer and VIP areas used visuals from New Zealand’s idyllic farmland, mirrored by green flooring and enhanced with subtle nature sounds. This was then complimented by a sharp, performance-led kitchen environment.
The design was refined to ensure each product pillar had a clear place within the stand, making it easy for visitors to navigate and understand the space. Three hero products were brought to the forefront: a larger-than-life Easy Bakery Cream installation created a standout visual moment to draw customers through the space and give the product prominence, while the Cultured Style Butter and Lamination Butter Sheet Range were given dedicated moments within the stand to showcase their quality and professional applications.
The kitchen was the centre of the experience. Across four days, 19 live cooking demonstrations were delivered by 13 chefs, showcasing innovative and on-trend recipes and allowing visitors to see AFP products being used in a professional culinary setting.
New brand ambassador chef Eric Kim was a particular drawcard for attendees. Travelling from South Korea, Kim is known as Asia’s number one chocolate master and was a judge on Iron Chef Thailand. He delivered two demonstrations, preparing a Basque cheesecake and a matcha cake, which attracted a particularly large audience.
Rather than positioning the kitchen as something to watch from a distance, the layout encouraged visitors to enter the space and engage with the chefs. They could see dishes being prepared, experience the aromas and taste the finished products, creating a physicalconnection with AFP’s products and the people using them.
Mongoose managed the activation end to end, covering creative development, stand production, logistics, staffing, equipment hire, AV and lighting, branded merchandise, warehousing and guest experience. It also handled amplification and content, including PR, photography, videography, and organic social.
The results
The activation attracted strong attention across FHA’s 10 halls of exhibitors, with the kitchen-led design helping AFP stand out and drawing visitors into the experience.
More than 1,500 samples were given out across the four-day event, while the 19 live demonstrations gave customers and partners multiple opportunities to experience AFP’s products in a real-world food setting.
Feedback on the ground was overwhelmingly positive, with attendees responding to the stand’s distinctive design and the opportunity to engage directly with the chefs, demonstrations and products.
Mongoose also managed AFP’s organic social activity across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. Reels from the activation achieved an average organic reach of around 3,000 per post across the markets where Mongoose had visibility.
Wider commercial outcomes were managed by Fonterra and were not available to Mongoose at the time of writing. However, the activation successfully translated AFP’s ‘performance partnership’ proposition into a physical experience, inviting customers and partners to explore the impact of its New Zealand provenance, products, and chef community at one of Asia’s major food and hospitality events.
Emma Brown, global marketing manager, Anchor Food Professionals, said: “Mongoose were an outstanding partner in bringing Anchor Food Professionals’ to life at FHA 2026. They took the time to understand our brand, customers and business objectives, then translated these into an engaging experience that authentically showcased Anchor Food Professionals on one of Asia’s biggest foodservice stages. Their strategic thinking, creativity and attention to detail, combined with stellar troubleshooting and flawless execution, made them a true extension of our team throughout the project.”
Charlotte Birley, global managing director at Mongoose, says, “This was an exemplary brand experience for us and is proof of the impact our team can have when handling a project from inception to amplification. True to form, the team delivered beyond the briefwithin some challenging parameters and created a world-class experience the client could be proud of.”
