Coming up to Frankfurt

"International PET retailing - where are the new challenges to be found for the pet business?" is the theme of the conference, which takes place on 14 and 15 November in Frankfurt am Main. The conference is being organised jointly by the international trade magazine PET in Europe, which is published by Dähne Verlag, and the well-known events organiser B + P Management Forum. For the last two years they have organised the German Pet Conference, which met with an enthusiastic response in the pet product sector and attracted around 200 top-notch visitors on each occasion. Dähne Verlag and B + P Management Forum have put together an interesting and varied programme this year too, and have once again lined up leading figures from the spheres of commerce and industry to speak at the International Pet Conference: Torsten Toeller, CEO of Europe's foremost speciality retail chain Fressnapf, the new European sales manager of Iams, Olaf Kallerhoff, the general secretary of Ornamental Fish International (OFI) Axel Ploeg, Andrea Domogalla, executive board member of the leading European online pet supply firm Zooplus, Eric Combelles, head of Pet Industry Research at the international market research institute Euromonitor International, and Lars Bergkvist, CEO of the Swedish speciality retail group Arken. What are the effects of globalisation on the pet product market? This question forms the common thread running through the conference programme. The talks will address various aspects of this: How does the retail trade prepare for internationalisation? What challenges does the pet product industry face? And how is the Internet, the global market place, changing the pet supplies sector? Other current topics that feature on the conference agenda include "Key trends and developments in the international pet product market", "International retailing", "International alliances and partnerships between trade and industry", the "Challenge of China", "Potential in the growth market of Eastern Europe" and "Multichannel retailing". And there'll be interesting workshops and discussion forums to complement the programme. The event will be chaired by Ralf Majer-Abele, the editor-in-chief of the two trade magazines PET in Europe and pet. One of the highlights of the International Pet Conference will be the presentation of the PET Retailer of the Year award, which is given to the most innovative speciality retail concept to have positioned itself successfully in the international…