Ready to trade – Study tour for Azerbaijani companies to Anuga

A selection of exporters from Azerbaijan offering natural ingredients and processed foods visited the Anuga trade fair in October ’19. They visited the fair to conduct research into EU market potential, quality and product requirements (including packaging and labelling), certification schemes, volumes and prices. Also, they visited some retail shops.

This activity included support in preparing and executing a market and trade fair visit for a delegation of exporters from Azerbaijan. Five potential exporters received tailor-made support in getting an answer to their main needs, which varied from company to company. The companies all participate in the 3-year technical assistance project: ‘Eastern Partnership: Ready to Trade - an EU4Business initiative’, in which the development of access to new markets within the European Union is an important cornerstone. Within the main theme and objective of the visitor tour – awareness-raising – the companies visited the trade fair to talk to peers/competitors/buyers in their sector. In addition to a 2-day visit to the Anuga trade fair, a third day was filled with visits to several retail outlets in Cologne, to get an idea of products and ranges available in the several retail segments.

Activities

Each of the companies developed its’ own Anuga-roadmap for the 2-days trade fair visit with support of Globally Cool. The program consisted of competition check-ups in the first place, and getting buyer’s feedback to the product, the potential, and the requirements in the European market. The companies used all the time they had every day, from 10 am to 6 pm, to get as many opinions, ideas and tips as possible.

Results

The companies got a lot of information from their visit to Cologne. Just as one example, this testimonial shows the impact of the three days to one of the companies: “The retail tour in Cologne convinced me of necessary improvements of our apple chips packaging. Particularly the organic products are packed in trendy, naturally looking packages with a smooth/soft/matte finish of the plastic pouch. I am sure that Crispa can obtain a competitive edge by packing the chips in such bags too.” A statistical summary of the actual output of the two days shows some impressive data:

• 75 key insights for a range of topics collected.
• 101 interviews with potential buyers and peers.
• 1235 minutes of discussions, information exchanges, etc.
• 150 km distance covered on comfortable shoes.