PETpla.net Insider 12 / 2011

imprint EDITORIAL PUBLISHER Alexander Büchler, Managing Director HEAD OFFICE heidelberg business media GmbH Häusserstr. 36 69115 Heidelberg, Germany phone: +49(0)6221-65108-0 fax: +49(0)6221-65108-28 info@hbmedia.net EDITORIAL Doris Fischer f ischer@hbmedia.net Michael Maruschke Ruari McCallion Ilona Trotter Wolfgang von Schroeter Anthony Withers MEDIA CONSULTANTS Ute Andrä andrae@hbmedia.net Martina Hischmann hirschmann@hbmedia.net Ursula Wachter wachter@hbmedia.net phone: +49(0)6221-65108-0 fax: +49(0)6221-65108-28 France, Italy, Spain, UK Elisabeth Maria Köpke phone: +49(0)6201-878925 fax: +49(0)6201-878926 koepke@hbmedia.net LAYOUT AND PREPRESS Exprim Kommunikationsdesign Matthias Gaumann | www.exprim.de READER SERVICES Kay Krüger reader@hbmedia.net PRINT Chroma Druck & Verlag GmbH Werkstraße 25 67354 Römerberg Germany WWW www.petpla.net | in dia.petpla.net PETplanet insider ISSN 1438-9459 is published 10 times a year. This publication is sent to qualified subscribers (1-year subscription 149 EUR, 2-year subscription 289 EUR, Young professionals’ sub- scription 99 EUR. Magazines will be dispatched to you by airmail). Not to be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. Note: The fact that product names may not be identified as trade marks is not an indication that such names are not registered trademarks. 3 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 12/11 www.petpla.net EDITORIAL dear readers, EDITORIAL What has been happening these past few weeks? Well, Brau Beviale has just closed its doors, so let’s start by looking at some numbers. Footfall this year was down by around 1,000, compared to last year. 31,693 visitors came through the door, (Source: Auma) and stayed a surprisingly long time considering it was a three day event: on aver- age 1.4 days in 2010, almost half the duration of the Fair. If the aver- age were to be maintained for 2011 too that would mean that more than 22,600 people visited the Fair. have to say I’m surprised that the sector is reckoned to be as big as 22,600. I think this might require a little more investigation... Let’s take another thread for a moment by looking at the Drinktec 2009 figures (Source: Auma again). Hmm – similar visitor numbers for Germany. There has to be something in that, but the question remains: just how big is the sector? Meat and drink for the editorial. Here’s Volker Kronseder, Krones CEO, a man with the facts at his fingertips, but in his opening speech at Brau Beviale, he gave figures from the VDMA only, and nothing about visitor numbers. Step forward Gerhard Ilgenfritz, CEO of Private Breweries Bavaria e.V. who quotes an initial figure of 1,325 breweries, not counting the micro-breweries. Is it just coincidence that there are 1,400 exhibitors and 1,325 breweries in Germany? The plot thickens. Here’s another thread in the story. Let’s consider the non-alcoholic sector where the situation is looking as clear as mud. The commer- cial units are either spread all over the place in the statistics or have not been included because of a lack of information on minimum size. I found this surprising, so let’s see if we can match up the size of the sector with the numbers of visitors. My maths isn’t up to it, sadly. The highlight for me is Gunnar Sprink- mann’s security strategy (see picture). No longer can anyone tamper with the PET bottle undetected. Neither can I if I forget the code. My dodgy maths tells me that, with three rings to turn, there are 1,000 possible combinations, slightly fewer than the number of breweries in Germany! Yours Alexander Büchler