31st international trade fair for organic food BIOFACH-2020 — the world’s leading event of the sector, February 12 – 15, Nuremberg, Germany.
3792 exhibitors from more than 110 countries. Over 47,000 visitors from 136 countries — despite the current outbreak of coronavirus. In parallel with the exhibition program, there is usually a big congress that had more than 300 events this year.
About 10 thousand persons took part in the work of the congress: it’s another proof of the importance of BIOFACH not only as a marketplace but a global platform for knowledge and information exchange dedicated to organic production. This year, BIOFACH was opened by the Mayor of Nuremberg,
Dr. Ulrich Maly, the Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture, Julia Klöckner, and a special guest, Jane Goodall. All of them encourage to protect the environment and eat organic!
What’s special about BIOFACH-2020?
The exhibition, which started from 197 exhibitors in 1990, hosted about 4 thousand in 2020, with an area of 58 thousand square meters. This year’s exhibition had 12 halls, 2 of them were specially opened for BIOFACH-2020. Traditionally, there was a separate hall for VIVANESS — an exhibition of natural and organic beauty products and personal care products. There were also specific blocks for olive oil, wine and vegan products. By the way, this year, Ukrainian production was presented for the very first time in the vegan block.
A few newcomers joined the exhibition, for example, from post-soviet countries, it was Georgia and Kazakhstan who got their own stands this year. Moldova, Armenia and Russia had already participated before, and Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan were presented by individual companies. Ukraine organized its own national pavilion 7 years in a row.
Not only the exhibition’s infrastructure changed and evolved, but also products presented there. Only a few years ago, mainly raw materials were presented at BIOFACH — this year, there was a small number of such offers. Now it’s mostly final products that are ready to eat. Also, most offers are designed for retail chains and HoReCa (hotel and restaurant business) as BIOFACH is a trade space, a «business-to-business» platform.
The participants of the exhibition thoroughly follow changes and trends in the organic market worldwide, preferences and tastes of consumers. Every year, they present the worldwide statistic of the organic production development, research of what consumers think about organic production and new organic products. Such a combination gives the opportunity to follow trends and predict further business development.
Special attention was dedicated to ecological problems this year: climate change, water and soil resources, — this was discussed nearly at every event of the congress.
About market growth
As had been predicted before, the world’s organic market experienced growth in 2018. The growth was more than 8% comparing to 2017; the total market size had become more than EUR 97 billion (about USD 105 billion). The US is still the biggest market in the world, it’s reaching nearly EUR 41 billion, the EU takes the second place, and it’s first of all Germany and France, the third place in consumption belongs to China with the market reaching EUR 8 billion and it keeps growing rapidly. Consequently, consumers are ready to spend more and more money on organic products. On average, in 2018, EUR 12.8 per capita were spent on organic products in the world, with the biggest growth in Denmark. While in 2017, it was EUR 278 per person, in 2018, the number had reached EUR 312 (EUR 34 growth), thus, catching up with Switzerland and its growth in EUR 24 (but the amount of money spent per year is EUR 312 too).
While an increase in the number of areas occupied by organic production worldwide was rather small — only 2.9%, in Europe it had reached 7.6%. In Ukraine, the number of organic areas has reached about 7% after a significant reduction in 2017.
About changes in consumer habits and new trends
Speaking about the market development, we have to understand what exactly stimulates consumers to buy organic products. The company Ecovia Intelligence has studied consumer interests all over the world and concluded that consumers are worried about climate changes the most, while choosing products, — 17% of respondents said this; 14% are mainly preoccupied with plastic garbage and 11% — about water pollution. The product safety is not in the TOP-10 main criteria of food choices and represents only 4%. But the situation changes depending on the area of residence. In Europe, health issues and desire to protect the environment influence food choices the most. In Asia — because of health-related fears and quality of products, organic food is considered much safer and healthier. In the US, GMO presence is one of the main criteria: it’s being condemned a lot by the public, and in organic production, it’s forbidden.
These specifics have to be considered by producers, as well as the growing number of vegans, changes in consumer behavior, the pace of life and demands of new generations.
This year, there was a huge number of products containing good proteins, vegan, gluten-free, lactose-free products, food produced not only with the requirements of organic production but also fair trade. In general, sometimes we can see up to 10 labels representing different standards on a packing. This trend will stay with us in the future as it’s been proven by the research of preferences of the modern generation. Though, considering the pace of life nowadays, most of the products should be instant. If earlier, organic producers offered just flour, now — it’s semi-finished products. A lot of products contain chia seeds and quinoa, hemp, sunflower seeds and so on.
This year’s winners in the category of innovation products: “Organic Volcano Rebel” cheese — the intense orange color of the cheese inside and its black uneven surface on the outside resemble the magma inside a volcano; an ice cream made from organic sheep milk; a hemp snack rich in protein, magnesium and omega-3 fatty acids, it can be cocoa or barberry flavored; “ready to eat” organic soups.
Here’s a few interesting products that were presented at BIOFACH for the first time: apple sugar, cucumber juice, yeast, sparkling tea.
About Ukrainian course
Ukrainian companies were presented in two collective stands at BIOFACH this year (The national Ukrainian pavilion, founded in 2014, and a stand for fruit and vegetable organic producers) and individual stands, — 37 companies in overall. The exposition of Ukrainian companies is being changed every year. If in the first year, there was almost no processed food presented at the exhibition, now, mainly, final products are displayed there, and the variety has been extended as well. According to the results collected in 2018, Ukraine took fourth place in volumes of organic products imported to the EU, though the overall cost of the products leaves much to be desired.
Ukraine and Ukrainian organic producers need to choose their own way of further development and take into account the world’s most modern trends and changes in the EU market as our main consumer. We have to remember that many EU countries are planning to increase the areas occupied by organic farming and provide their consumers with local production. German in particular is going to have 20% of lands under organic farming by 2030. Support programs for farmers are being actively developed in the EU, subsidies are provided within the EU Common Agricultural Policy, “Green Deal” and “Farm to fork” strategy having been deployed. What course does Ukraine have to follow in these conditions and in such a fast-paced environment? Is there a risk for our producers of becoming uncompetitive in the EU market that has already become traditional for us? Is the level of government support sufficient enough? It’s possible that companies should start to search for alternative markets for the distribution of organic products, or maybe it’s just a perfect time to speed up the development of the internal market.
The next 32nd BIOFACH will open its doors in a year — on February 17, 2021
Kateryna Shor, OrganicInfo