Anuga fair in Germany

FOODWORKS DIRECTORY

Anuga: competitors in harmony at huge food fair

It's an extravaganza of food, the Anuga fair in Germany – a trade event on an eye-popping scale. At the entrances, tens of thousands of people press themselves between turnstiles. And there really is produce of every variety in the 11 halls that stretch out across central Cologne.

One hall welcomes you with a mountain of meat – huge cuts of beef piled high. The accompanying smell is something like 100 butchers' shops combined.

Others feature everything from olive oils to organic chia seeds, from cheese to free-range chicken, from icecream to energy drinks.

But despite all the smells and sights, most people attending are not here to eat. This is a trade fair, where food suppliers meet their customers – importers, distributors and supermarket chains from around the world.

Down the end of an aisle in one of the three halls devoted to meat, a collection of Kiwi exporters are busily keeping appointments, forging new contacts and catching up with their customers from around the world.

"I get about 40 or 50 business cards a day," says Taylor Preston chief executive Simon Gatenby, who is attending the fair for the eighth time. "One or two will work out. That's the rule with them."

Maintaining and developing existing relationships is actually more important than looking for new ones, he says. They are the main reason Taylor Preston, which has export sales of about $250 million a year, comes to the fair.

As it has done before, Taylor Preston has teamed up with other similarly sized exporters in a joint stand, which is decked out in black with silver ferns and pictures of lambs in idyllic green fields.

Meat exporters are almost the country's only representatives at this year's fair. The companies on the stand are "friendly competitors", Gatenby says. They have some of the same customers, but that's not a problem. Sometimes the only way a big European supermarket retailer can get enough New Zealand lamb, for instance, is by ordering it off multiple suppliers.

"The consistency of our product is so strong. Our lamb leg tastes the same as the lamb leg that comes from [Blue Sky Meats]. That's not the same, say, in Australia."

Speaking of Australia, right next to the Kiwi stand is an Australian equivalent about 10 times the size.

That's what happens, says Blue Sky Meats' marketing manager Chad Brown, when you get millions of dollars in government support. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise ought to help out the industry more, he says.

He is at his tenth fair. It is an international crossroads for the food industry, he says.

"It is a common meeting point for a lot of our customers. It is also a good place to get a feel for where things are going. The fair is becoming more international. There are plenty of Russian customers here – Russia's about to take off. And while we sell mostly into the EU, we'll see people from North America to China, Hong Kong, and Africa too – South Africa, Ghana, Angola."

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