Gordon Food Service Shows

Review by eFreeware

It is a free app with no ads and no in-app purchases, and it exists to help people get more out of a trade show visit rather than to serve as a general-purpose events tool.

The appeal is that the show floor is usually too large to walk blindly. The app puts the floor map, venue details, booth listings and the live stage agenda in one place, so you can decide what to see before you arrive instead of improvising once you are inside. For exhibitors, there is a second job: capturing leads and commitments during the show and sending customers point of sale.

Planning a route before the doors open

The part I would reach for first is the floor map. Knowing where booths sit relative to the stage and the entrances makes a difference when a show runs for a day or two and you have a list of suppliers to see. Venue details round this out, which matters if you are traveling to an unfamiliar convention center and want to know what you are walking into.

The recommended and showcased items give the visit some direction. Rather than wandering until something catches your eye, you can note what the show is putting forward and build a short list around it. The live stage agenda is the other piece worth checking early, since sessions tend to overlap and you will want to pick between them.

None of this is complicated, and that is the point. It is a reference tool for a specific event, not a networking platform or a scheduling system for your whole calendar.

Notes that stay attached to what you saw

The feature I find most useful in principle is note-taking tied to products seen on the floor. Sales people and customers can both keep notes linked to specific items, which solves a real problem at food shows: by the afternoon, the details of which vendor showed which product blur together. Writing it down next to the product itself keeps the context intact.

Lead reports are available from the app right after the show ends. That timing is the useful part. Exhibitors usually face a gap between collecting interest on the floor and getting that information into whatever system they use afterward, and having the report in hand the same day shortens it.

Recent fixes covered a customer list tab that briefly showed an empty state instead of a loading indicator, purchase orders and cart data that sometimes ignored the right customer or ordering-group scope, and a selected view mode or product-detail filter that reset on its own. Those are the small frictions that make a show app frustrating, and they have been addressed.

What exhibitors get out of it

For exhibitors, the app covers the working side of a show. Leads and commitments can be taken during the event, and point of sale can be sent to customers from the same place. That keeps the follow-up close to the conversation rather than leaving it for a desk back at the office.

I would expect this to suit sales staff who spend a show talking to a steady stream of people and need somewhere to put each conversation before the next one starts. The lead report then carries that work forward once the floor closes.

It is worth being clear about the scope here: this is not a tool for running your own event or for managing a team across multiple shows. It is built around the Gordon Food Service Food Shows and the people who attend them.

What you need before you go

The app is free to download, carries no ads and offers no in-app purchases, so there is no cost question to weigh before installing it. It is rated for Everyone and has been available since August 2022, with the most recent update in September 2026.

I would treat the app itself as the thing you need in hand before the show rather than a step-by-step onboarding you have to work through. Downloading it ahead of time and looking at the map and agenda while you still have room to plan is the sensible order of operations.

The install base sits at over 10,000 with a 4.2 average from a modest 20 ratings. That is a small sample, so I would not read much into the number either way; it tells you the app is in use by people attending these shows, not that it has been widely judged.

A companion for the Food Show floor

If you are attending a Gordon Food Service Food Show, this is the app made for that visit, and there is little reason not to have it on your phone before you arrive. The floor map, booth list, showcased items and stage agenda cover the planning side, and the product-linked notes cover the part of the day you would otherwise forget.

Exhibitors get the more substantial half of the tool: leads, commitments, point of sale and a lead report available immediately after the show. Anyone whose job at the event involves talking to customers and following up afterward will find that more valuable than the attendee-facing features.

For everyone else, this is a narrow app tied to a specific company's events. That is not a flaw, just the shape of it. Install it when a Food Show is on your calendar, use it for the show, and let the lead reports do their work afterward.

What's new in version 9.69.1

- Fixed an issue where switching between customer list tabs could briefly show "no customers found" instead of a loading indicator. - Fixed purchase orders and cart data occasionally not respecting the correct customer/ordering-group scope. - Fixed an issue where your selected Interactions view mode and product-detail attendee filter could silently reset.