After Anuga FineFood, the second biggest trade show under the roof of Anuga is Anuga Meat with its roughly 800 suppliers from about 50 countries. Anuga will take place from 8th to 12th October 2011 in Cologne. Anuga Meat presents products from the subsegments meat, sausage, game and poultry and will present top companies from Germany and abroad. With participants including Abraham Schinken, Beretta, Brasil Foods, Campofrio, Citterio, Danish Crown, Ferrarini, Gausepohl, Houdek, JBS, L.D.C., Mafrig, Plukon Food Group, Reinert, Smithfield Foods, Tönnies, Tyson Foods, Van Drie, Vestey Foods, Vion, Westfleisch, Wiesenhof and Wiltmann, Anuga Meat offers buyers from the trade and from the food service and catering market an outstanding platform for gathering information and placing orders. With this turnout, this year’s Anuga Meat has even once again surpassed the good level reached in 2009. Anuga Meat will occupy Halls 5, 6 and 9, thus covering a gross exhibition space of about
50,000 m².
In addition, taking place for the first time will be “Meat Essentials – the Evening for the Meat Industry,” an event for the sector and with the sector. On Sunday, 9th October 2011, entrepreneurs and managers will gather to share ideas and information of importance to the meat sector, starting at 6:00 p.m. in the Rheinsaal at Koelnmesse. The event’s brief presentations addressing topics including safety and transparency will stimulate discussions, before it transitions into a relaxed get-together. The evening programme will also include the presentation of the Lifetime Award for outstanding achievements in the meat industry. There will be simultaneous German/English translation.
Exports are an important factor in the meat industry German meat packing companies are increasingly focusing on markets abroad. After all, meat consumption in Germany hasn’t grown appreciably in years. German consumers eat an average of about 60 kilograms of meat annually per person. Pork accounts for the largest share of the total (about two thirds), far ahead of poultry (nearly 20 per cent) and beef (just under 14 per cent). All other types of meat are of virtually no importance for the market.
Due to the lack of growth on the domestic market, even distant markets like Russia and China are attracting the interest of the German meat packers. Last year’s foreign trade surplus with exports of pork, a “juicy” four per cent, is to a large degree a result of the increase in deliveries to these two countries. The volume of exports to Russia alone rose almost 20 per cent. Chinese consumers also enjoy products made of tongue, ears and bones, for example, which have no great appeal to western customers. Despite the long transport distances, the Westfleisch company of Münster, Germany, started direct deliveries to China last year, boosting earnings per pig by about four euros. For a company that slaughters over six million swine a year, that is a considerable sum. And the East Westphalia-based Tönnies Group has meanwhile become licensed to export to China.
New competitors are also emerging in the East, however: Russian meat suppliers have been trying for years to gain better access to the EU market, for instance. They complain of an imbalance in foreign trade of meat, and claim it is because they are often deprived of market access for no reason. According to the Russian meat suppliers, a small number of Russian exporters stand against hundreds of companies from EU countries that import their animal products to Russia.
While the meat packing companies have been growing into larger and larger corporations, it is the long-established brands like Herta, Reinert and Houdek that are determining which products appear in the refrigerated sections of retail stores. The list of the biggest meat packers in Germany also includes the supermarket chains Edeka and Rewe, which primarily produce own brands such as “Gutfleisch” (Edeka) and “Wilhelm Brandenburg“ (Rewe) in their meat packing facilities.
Traditional butcher shops are becoming less and less important to German buyers of meat and sausage products. Only one in every six euros spent by German consumers for steaks or liverwurst goes into the cash registers of specialist butcher shops. On the rise for years now have been the discounters, which have succeeded in increasing their market share in this product group to about one third. And it looks like competition is set to become more intense: Studies by consumer behaviour researchers indicate that meat consumption will not increase in the coming years. It is simply a fact that younger consumers in particular are eating less and less meat and sausage.
Many meat packers are trying to compensate for this trend by offering small packages containing up to 80 grams or an expanded range of convenience products. The Rügenwalder Mühle company offers its “Mühlen Würstchen” in an innovative, re-sealable package without unappealing excess juice from the sausage. In addition, poultry and light products continue to have great potential, even if the pace of growth has slowed somewhat compared to last year.
Health will also be a very important topic at this year’s Anuga Meat, with growing numbers of consumers buying only products that are free of allergens, flavour enhancers, gluten and artificial colouring. And lactose intolerance is playing an increasingly important role when it comes to meat products, which is why many sausage producers have stopped using lactose in their recipes.
The highest standards for food safety and product quality are upheld by the Zur-Mühlen Group with brands such as Böklunder, Redlefsen and Könecke. Tens of millions of euros are being invested annually in the rapidly expanding corporate group’s seven plants to ensure further improvement of product safety. The company, which according to its own figures is number one in pre-packaged sausage products in Germany (annual turnover of more than €800 million), opened a technology centre last year in Satrup in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. Now all of the group’s quality management activities will be centrally managed at the 630 square metre facility. In an international comparison, the German meat industry continues to be a strong performer: More than one fourth of the meat products produced in Europe come from Germany.
In the meantime, the meat packing companies are still being subjected to a concentration process. Germany’s ten largest pork packing plants control a market share of 75 per cent. Of the approximately 58 million swine slaughtered in Germany annually, 15 million are processed at slaughterhouses operated by the Tönnies Group. According to the family owned company’s own information, that makes it the market leader in Germany and number three in Europe. With an annual turnover of €4.3 billion, the corporate group led by Clemens Tönnies is certainly a sector heavyweight, but its turnover is far surpassed by the Vion Food Group, which is based in Best near Eindhoven in the Netherlands. The group, which was created from the former Bestmeat company, had a turnover of about €8.9 billion last year. Starting in 2002, Bestmeat/Vion acquired in succession the meat marketing company Moksel of southern Germany, followed by the meat packing companies Nordfleisch and Südfleisch. And the enormous meat company Danish Crown is meanwhile active in Germany: In 2010 the Danes took over the company D&S Fleisch of Oldenburg, Germany, and since then its annual earnings are in excess of €6 billion.
The undisputed sector giant JBS is also showing interest in the European market. Based in São Paulo, JBS is the world’s largest beef marketing company and will also be represented at this year’s Anuga Meat. Last year the company’s turnover was the equivalent of €23.8 billion. The Brazilian group has meanwhile increased its ownership share of the Italian ham specialist Rigamonti Salumificio from 70 to 100 per cent. The group’s chief executives, the brothers Joesley and Wesley Batista, recently made the headlines again with their plans to take over the U.S. consumer goods company Sara Lee, which owns the American meat product brands Hillshire Farm, State Fair and Jimmy Dean.
Anuga will take place from Saturday, 8th October, to Wednesday, 12th October 2011. It is open to trade visitors only.
More information on Anuga is available at: www.anuga.com.
Source: Anuga Meat