The countdown for the opening of Anuga Frozen Food is getting shorter, as the concentrated business platform for the frozen food sector at Anuga, the world’s largest trade fair for the food and beverage industry, will open for business on October 5 and run through the 9th. On all five days of the show, the fairgrounds will open for business at 10 AM. Doors will close at 7 PM, with the exception of the last day, when they will close at 6 PM.
Gathered in Halls 4.1 and 4.2 at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany, will be more than 500 exhibitors from approximately 50 countries presenting their wide range of products within a gross exhibition area of 27,500 square meters.Among companies exhibiting will be:
Agrarfrost, Ardo, Aviko, Crop’s, d’Arta, Bridor, Blue Elephant Catering, Clarebout Potatoes, Darégal, Eurofrigo, Herbafrost, Erlenbacher Backwaren, Food Empire Holdings, Foodimpex Intternational, Green Isle Foods, Gunnar Dafgard, Galileo, Givrex (Robert Mansour & Co.), Hasa, Henry Lamotte Food, Kerry Foods Ltd, Keck Spezialitaten, La Charlotte, Lamb Weston/Meijer, Lantamannen Unibake Holdings A/S, Lutosa, Maple Leaf Consumer Foods, Marathon Foods Ltd.
Also: Miralite Mirsa Co., Mydibel, Oerlemans, Oxford Frozen Foods, Pfalzgraf, Pickenpack Europe, Pinguin/Greenyard Foods NV, Pasfrost, Polar Seafood Denmark A/S, Salomon FoodWorld, Salud Foodgroup, Scelta Mushrooms, Schne-frost Ernst Schnetkamp, Superior Foods International, Surgital, Sweet Street Desserts, Trateur de Paris, Unilever Deutschland, Van Drie Group, Vion GmbH, Vitacurie S.A., Voly Star, Vossko, Wernsing, Yantai Meigi Foostuffs Co., and many more.
All told, around 170 companies from Germany alone will display frozen products. Moreover, attractive frozen offerings will also be exhibited at other locations with the Anuga premises, such as within the Foodservice section in Hall 7. There MEX-AL El Sombrero GmbH will show its line of Mexican cuisine products at Stand F 029 on the first floor.
Topics and Trends
The “magic formula” in frozen food trends is “fresh and convenient,” which means that frozen food products are in step with the development of the overall food market, pointed out the Anuga organizers. Consumers and professional chefs alike are looking for high-quality foods that are quick and easy to prepare while at the same time fulfill the requirements of healthy nutrition. The growing demand for frozen meals, frozen snacks and frozen baked goods confirms this trend.
A second trend that is also reflected in the frozen food sector is the transition to “pure” recipes that don’t include additives. In this area as well, the frozen food industry is proactively appealing to the changing needs of consumers.
What’s more, frozen food manufacturers are expanding their product ranges in response to shifts in today’s eating habits. These changes are being driven by factors such as an increase in the number of cases of food allergies and evolving attitudes toward food consumption. Some of these new products are lactose and/or gluten-free items. There is also no lack of frozen food products that meet the increasing demand for halal, organic and vegan/vegetarian cuisine.
In 2012 the average consumption of frozen foods was 41 kilograms per capita in Germany. The intake figure per household was 83.6 kilograms. Sales within the frozen food segment (including home delivery services) and the foodservice and catering market amounted to 3.32 million tons in 2012, valued at EUR 12.017 billion in turnover, surpassing the EUR 12 billion mark for the first time.
The results for 2012 once again demonstrated that the positive development in the frozen food sector — one of the five largest segments of the food industry in Germany — is very stable and is even generating slight growth. Industry experts predict that there will once again be an increase in growth recorded for 2013.
Frozen Food Event on Tap
Koelnmesse, along with the Deutsches Tiefkühlinstitut (the German Frozen Food Institute), Lebensmittel Praxis and tk-report -18, have organized a “Frozen Food” event for the evening of October 7.The theme will be “Competition Between Frozen Food and Fresh Food Sections in Retail Stores.”
Industry and food trade representatives are invited to come together in a relaxed atmosphere to discuss the frozen food business. The discussion will begin at 6:45 PM in Offenbachsaal, Congress Centre East.
For the record, the origins of this event date back more than 20 years, when Quick Frozen Foods International (QFFI) magazine partnered with Koelnmesse in launching the “Golden Ice Crystal Lifetime Achievement Awards Ceremony,” which eventually evolved into a more elaborate affair that included state of the industry presentations and market overviews. Some former members of QFFI, who were made redundant following the magazine publisher’s decision to shut down the 54-year-old publication following the April 2013 issue, will be in attendance. They have moved on to found FrozenFoodsBiz.com, a digital news and information platform for the global frozen food industry that launched in October.
