The European F&F Industry is alive and well.

Hello again – I hope you enjoyed my last post re my thoughts after travelling down to Grasse for the first time and now as promised I am posting Part 2 of my trip to France where I attended FIE 2016 (Food Ingredients Europe) in Paris, albeit a bit late but I suppose better late than never.

Before I get into my musings I would like to wish my friends, colleagues and readers all the best for you and yours for a healthy and prosperous 2016.

After my successful trip down to Grasse, while reluctant to be leaving, I was really pumped up to get back to Paris and attend FIE. Unlike IFT this event only comes around every 2 years which many think is a better Rota, but to be fair, IFT is much more than just an exhibition. It is the annual convention for the Institute of Food Technologists, and not only has an exhibition but also provides expansive educational seminars to its members and is the annual meeting etc. Having said this the Expo part of IFT doesn’t provide the same impact as FIE and rather than being a place to transact business is more a meeting place for friends and colleagues. I just get the feeling that FIE because it is every 2 years has more urgency and value for money for the exhibitors but that’s only my opinion.

I arrived back in Paris and making the decision to avoid trains due to the security issues, caught a taxi from CDG, which in hindsight was a big mistake. The World Climate Change conference had just started and traffic was being rerouted all over the place as the French Government ferried around over 190 heads of state for the big official kick off. The World Climate Change conference was on at the same time and as luck has it this event was being held at the suburb of Le Bourget, which was on the same train line to get to the Airport and Paris Nord Villepinte (FIE). This gathering was expected to attract 50,000 participants including 25,000 official delegates from government, intergovernmental organizations, UN agencies, NGO’s and private groups so you could understand why Paris was probably the safest place to be.

As my hotel was very close to the Gare du Nord railway station I decided after the long and expensive taxi ride the night before, that maybe catching the train wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Gare du Nord has in excess of 190 million people passing through it each year, and it is the busiest railway station in Europe and the busiest in the world outside Japan. To me security was not as evident as one would have expected. The station was surprisingly open to anyone to walk in and catch trains etc. with no checks or screening, unless you were catching the TGV to England or Belgium, and the only noticeable additional security came from fully armed soldiers patrolling around. The exhibition itself had airline style detectors and bag checks and as you walked from the train station to the exhibition precinct there was an area where everyone had to open their jackets to show they are not wearing a suicide vest. I have to be honest that this was a bit disconcerting given the mass of people funneling through the gate to enter the exhibition grounds.

FIE received more than 32 exhibitor cancellations due to security concerns. The biggest shock for me was that Wild Flavors were absent from FIE for the first time. I know Dr Wild would never not attend this important exhibition, where for years Wild has stood toe to toe with Doehler vying for the taste buds of customers. Doehler were there but it just wasn’t the same without Wild. When people ask has the ADM acquisition made a difference to Wild, this is a good example of how things have changed moving from an entrepreneurial family owned flavor company to a giant commodity company such as ADM. Also ADM is a publicly traded company and this introduces a whole new dynamic what with quarterly targets, earnings estimates and the ensuing pressures that this brings, so it will be very interesting how things progress over the next few years.

From my opinion FIE was a resounding success – numbers were down but that’s ok as my target customers are companies exhibiting at FIE – lots of Flavor and Color companies as well as smaller specialty ingredients companies. Fewer visitors meant more time to chat with me. The exhibition held Dec 1^st to 3^rd, brought visitors from over 119 countries and over 1,400 exhibitors and an estimated 27,000 visitors. As I said numbers were down and some exhibitors were disappointed by the turn out but overall most were satisfied given the recent events. Personally I had so many leads and meetings scheduled that I was working right through to closing time after 3 full days.

After this successful trip I have revised my view of the F&F Industry in Europe. Before I arrived in Paris, I felt that Europe was a very difficult market, highly competitive with little growth and that new business came at the expense of a competitor with new launches drying up. While the market dynamics haven’t necessarily changed in Western Europe, 2 things that I observed have given me cause for optimism. Firstly, the number of new F&F start-ups in the region that are emulating their peers in North America, by providing an alternative to the Top 10 global players especially with SME customers. Secondly, despite the IMF forecasting Europe to achieve annual GDP growth of only 1.7% we forget that Europe has its own emerging markets to boost revenue and profits – Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and this has been the engine driver for many smaller F&F companies as well as European Global players. I am also very encouraged by the numbers of Flavor companies who were exhibiting at FIE for the first time – not only from the main markets of France, Germany or the UK but also from other lesser known markets.

The F&F industry in Europe is alive and well. Capital investment is impressive as European companies are investing more in robots and technology, and I many more are willing to look at international expansion, than their peers in North America. There was certainly a genuine sense of optimism which was great to see and I want to wish the many companies that I met with, all the best for the future.