At the end of a turbulent year, this year's FIE in Frankfurt took place in an atmosphere filled with opportunities. We welcomed a high number of visitors, both from procurement and NPD disciplines, from both major global food companies and medium-sized regional companies. Next to the expected interest in value engineering projects, we were positively surprised by the large interest in our propositions.
I wish to highlight the recently launched Verifruit® original and the dried Bits & Pieces. Besides showcasing these products in a display, various Verifruit applications could be sampled. Our own enthusiasm regarding the fantastic taste and mouth feel of dried Verifruit cherries coated with chocolate and Verifruit in ice-cream was reflected in the response we received from visitors.
The Pluot-smoothie – presented to trigger discussions on new ideas and pleasant taste combinations – turned out to be a great success, with a lot of sample follow-up. We are curious to see how this fruit, which grows close to our SVZ USA plant, will set foot on European and Asian grounds. Alongside the Pluot-smoothie we presented a Fruit & Veg Fusion drink, containing pumpkin and sweet corn combined with fruit ingredients. The discussion around fruit & vegetable blends has started to settle as they offer solutions for several key issues in the juice industry: acidity, caloric values and unstable raw material prices. All these three issues can be tackled by developing blends that contain a considerable proportion of vegetable juice. In the current economic times, it comes as no surprise that in several meetings price stability was the deciding factor to initiate new projects.
One of the displays showed several (vegetable) concentrates that find their way into new applications, such as red pepper, kale and spinach concentrate. They can be used for colouring purposes but also bring additional functionalities to juice drinks and juices. Another example is beetroot concentrate that has recently proven to provide a great taste to 100% fruit & vegetable juices, even at dosage levels of over 20% in the final juice.
We also noticed a great interest in our unrivalled Ultra Quick Frozen puree cubes, which have proven again that the high speed of freezing and defrosting really is a USP in the fruit puree business.
The FIE offered a great platform to discuss exciting opportunities with both existing and potential customers for the year ahead. Looking back at a turbulent 2009, we can say that we have been able to survive this tough year. For 2010, I still expect big challenges, but many opportunities for SVZ as well. I would like to thank you all for your trust in SVZ and I hope that we will meet again in the new year, in good health.
Marco van de Sant
Sales & Marketing Manager
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