From Aragon to Catalonia

It’s roughly 300 kilometres from Zaragoza, the last venue of the Iberzoo trade fair, to this year’s location, Barcelona. The two venues are separated not only by a considerable distance, according to the organiser, the Asociación Española de Distribuidores de Productos para Animales de Compañía (AEDPAC), but also by the expansion of the exhibition area from just under 5 000 m² to 14 000 m². Ample space, therefore, for the 112 exhibitors from over 700 companies, who presented around 1 500 different pet industry brands to trade visitors to the Montjuïc exhibition halls. The exhibitors, approximately a third of whom travelled to Barcelona from abroad, appeared satisfied with the organisation of the fair and how it went: “The show was a very positive experience for us, even if the Spanish market is tending to stagnate at the moment,” said Vicente Ferrandiz Sanchez-Beato, commercial director of the Spanish firm Supercanto. There was little trace of this stagnation at the fair, however. German companies also seemed pleased with the outcome of the fair. Bewital Petfood presented its “Belcando” bakery products for dogs on an international stage for the first time at Iberzoo. The company said that trade visitors also showed great interest in the new pack sizes for the moist premium food “Leonardo” for cats and “Belcando” for dogs. “We entered the Spanish market two years ago with our subsidiary Bewital Nutricion Espana and have since been supplying wholesalers and pet supplies retailers locally with our pet food range,” explains managing director Jürgen Wigger. Fair and conference In addition to the actual fair, Iberzoo offered trade visitors the opportunity to find out the latest facts about the pet supplies market at a conference. Taking “Economic situation of the pet sector” as his title, speaker Troy Bilbao, an analyst from the market research institute Euromonitor International, explained the situation of the pet supplies market in times of recession. According to Bilbao, the pet market is characterised by its resistance to global crises and experiences a slight upswing even when global financial problems exist. As well as supplying hard facts about the pet sector and information on product innovations, Iberzoo also provided an extensive supporting programme of events located in a separate hall. This included various agility courses, along with demonstrations by dog trainers and their pets. The Barcelona aquarium association also presented a host of prepared…