There can only be one
The Swiss market is too small for more than one food fair. The race between Bern and Basel for the customer's stomach is still open.
Cheese here, bread there, meat elsewhere. The Swiss food fairs product range is as full of holes as the proverbial cheese. The battle for exhibitors and visitors in the Swiss arena is still far from over. Its protagonists - BEA Bern Expo in one corner and MCH Swiss Exhibition in the other - are going all out to remain attractive to buyers and exhibitors and do justice to food industry trends. At the moment Bern is trailing the field somewhat. Space problems forced the organisers to put their Fromage, positioned as the International Cheese and Dairy Products Fair, back a year. The new date is January 2008. René Zürcher, divisional manager business development at BEA, announced that the fair, the last edition of which numbered 83 exhibitors and some 3,600 attendees, is to alternate with the FBK trade fair for the bakery industry, scheduled to take off on January 21, 2007.
Viewed in this light, the Bernese and their Fromage will bring up the rear in the next round. After Cologne's Anuga in October 2007 and the Igeho in Basel in November, they will be the third and last of the trio, seeking to sell Fromage as a worthwhile event for exhibitors and visitors in the industry. It is hoped that a new concept, said to be forthcoming in the autumn, will give the trade exhibition a lift. In the future, the cheese and dairy industry show is to present itself within a high-quality communication platform.
Yet both Zürcher and Manuela Kern, head of communications at the MCH Swiss Exhibition (Basel) Igeho team, are perfectly aware that in the long run the market wants one single show.
To set the stage for this, officials in Basel have begun by giving butchers a new home: Mefa, a new tradeshow for the meat industry, is docking onto Igeho, co-organised by the SFF Swiss meat federation set up this May, which is committed to the concept of broadening Igeho. As a result, next year a butchery trade fair will take place in Switzerland for the first time since 2003.
This cooperation is the first sign of how MCH sees the future of its Igeho. The Exhibition for Industrial and Institutional Catering, Hotels and Restaurants is also aiming for customers stomachs. The attempt to launch an industry show of its own in May, in the shape of the Lefa, stumbled not least over existing contracts and individual association interests, Kern says. But MCH makes no secret of the fact that in the longer term cheese suppliers and bakers could also come under Basel's wing. This would dovetail with market demands for one big industry exhibition in Switzerland.
And that, Kern insists, is definitely worthwhile - notwithstanding the might of Anuga in neighbouring Germany. The focus tends to be on the regional market, for which the fair certainly has its appeal. Igeho has its sights on independent retailers not bound to the big corporations, as well as butchers, for example.
But officials in Bern are not simply going to sit back and watch Basel capture the food market without a fight. The bakers, the major industry players who like it in Bern, so Zürcher says, have joined forces with them. Autumn will bring the decision on when and on what scale construction and expansion work takes place at BEA. Moving forward, Zürcher is confident of being able to offer the entire food industry an adequate exhibition venue. His vision is that of a Swiss Anuga.
m+a report Nr.5 / 2006 vom 14.08.2006
m+a report vom 14. August 2006