Every two years in October the food industry looks to Cologne in Germany.
Cologne hosts Anuga (The Allgemeine Nahrungs und Genussmittel-Ausstellung), or General Food and Drink Trade Fair. It is described by the promoters as the world’s largest and most important food and beverage fair.
This year the organisers expect to host 7,798 exhibitors, and 180,000 visitors from around the world over five days.
Some 1038 of these exhibitors (13%) are either suppliers to meat processors, or manufacturers of meat products.
There are also some 50 exhibitors offering meat-free alternatives for products like sausages and burgers.
How to get there?
There will be three of us travelling, Production Paddy, Technical Tim, and myself. We are great fans of the train, so we start at Tiverton Parkway, then London, Brussels, Aachen and lastly Dusseldorf. 7 hours door to door, more sustainable and certainly less stress than travelling by air. We can experience the delights of the Dusseldorf Altstadt (Old Town) and its unique dark and malty altbier, we might have time to learn more about the influence of bands like Kraftwerk and Dusseldorf in the 80’s on David Bowie and Brian Eno.
From Dusseldorf we can reach the Trade Fair on the train in an hour. Ticket holders travel free on most public transport in the region.
What are we looking for?
As a relatively small company with around 25 employees, we are proud of our pioneering innovation on packaging and on productivity. Anuga provides an opportunity for us to physically meet and strengthen relations with customers from East Asia to the US. We can pitch ideas and concepts, run pilots, and collaborate.
Most, if not all our suppliers will be at this show, they can share their innovation in the knowledge that we have the culture to develop and scale any idea that adds value.
In particular
We are delighted to be UK 2023 Meat, Seafood and Poultry Manufacturer of the Year.
This comes on the back of increasing our sales per employees by 72% over the last two years. We need ideas and Anuga is where we can find inspiration.
These are key areas for Westaway Sausages.
Automation and technology, data sharing, real time data, artificial intelligence.
Digital assets, online marketing, food safety, operational efficiency.
Product trends, foods of the future, circular economy.
If you want to work with us let’s start a dialogue charles@westawaysausages.com