“It is in all of our interests that the economic potential of Greece finds its way back on track to a better future,” said the German Minister of Agriculture, Christian Schmidt, on Saturday in his opening speech at the world food trade fair Anuga 2015 in Cologne.
To this end, Schmidt announced bilateral discussions with his Greek counterpart Evangelos Apostolou that are also due to take place during the trade fair. Greece is this year’s partner country of Anuga, which is opening its doors to trade visitors at the Cologne fair grounds again until 14 October.
For his part, Greek’s Minister of Agriculture, Evangelos Apostolou, underlined the great importance the agriculture and food sector continues to have for his country in addition to the tourist industry.
In his speech at the opening ceremony of Anuga 2015, Apostolou called for foreign investments in this area. The Greek Minister stressed that the Government in Athens wants to support the food sector with subsidies of six billion Euros in total up until the year 2020. He stated that the regular presence of his country at Anuga complements the efforts of Greek politics, since an important marketing network has been established via the trade fair over the past decades.
“Greek has been among the ten largest exhibiting nations at Anuga for many years,” underlined Cologne’s Mayor Jürgen Roters in his capacity as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Koelnmesse. “This is good for your country,” said Roters turning to address the Greek Minister for Agricultural Development and Food directly. Roters proudly made reference to the new record number of exhibitors Anuga 2015 set this year, namely over 7,000 exhibitors from 108 countries. Exhibitors from Iceland and Qatar took part for the first time ever.
Dr. Wolfgang Ingold, Chairman of the Federation of German Food and Drinks Industries (BVE), stressed the efficiency of the food industry, which makes an important contribution towards fighting hunger worldwide. The German Minister of Agriculture Schmidt referred to the UN Resolution that was recently passed in New York to conquer hunger worldwide by the year 2030.
“Below the line, 800 million people still haven’t got enough to eat, but over the past decades the population has increased by a further three billion,” said Schmidt and complained above all about the avoidable food waste in the industrial nations. However, the Minister also talked about the high post-harvest losses, caused by the lack of storage possibilities for agricultural products and due to the lacking infrastructure of many developing countries. “Around a third of all food is lost en route from the field to the plate,” complained Schmidt.
The Minister wants to get to grips with the food waste issue in Germany with the campaign “Too good for the dustbin”. The programme targets schoolchildren in the 3rd to 9th grade at all types of schools. Because in surveys, a majority of the children and youths of these age groups stated that they threw food away several times a week. In the age group of over 60-year-olds, the share of food squanderers was incredibly low at only two percent.
In his Anuga 2015 opening ceremony speech, Friedhelm Dornseifer, the recently re-elected President of the Association of the German Retail Grocery Trade (BVLH), on the other hand, addressed the sweeping accusations made by some of the commodity producers.
For example, many milk farmers are complaining about the radical decline in producer prices, which they blame the trade for. “The market pricing is an integral element of the social market economy,” said Dornseifer in Cologne. And this is quite simply determined by the supply and the demand, stated the President of the Association.
Anuga, from 10 to 14 October 2015, is the world’s biggest and most important business platform for the international food industry. With over 7,000 exhibitors from 108 countries, Anuga 2015 once again set a new record number of exhibitors.
Around 155,000 trade visitors from all over the world are expected to attend the fair.
Anuga is exclusively open to trade visitors from the retail and food service trades from Saturday, 10 October 2015 until Wednesday, 14 October 2015, from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. on all days.
