A boost in motivation for the pet sector

It all turned out well. 1 328 exhibitors from 59 countries and 27 861 trade visitors from 129 countries helped to make Interzoo in Nuremberg a success. The mood was excellent and upbeat; everyone seemed delighted to be able to visit a live show once more and meet business partners in person again.  

It’s true that there were considerably more visitors to the world-leading show four years ago. And there were a lot more German trade visitors in particular, who chose to stay away this year for whatever reason. It is also the case that after two very busy days, the visitor footfall on the last day of the fair was pretty small. But isn’t the key takeaway the fact that the world’s number one pet supplies show in Nuremberg was able to take place at all in these difficult times? Was it not much more important that the international pet sector could finally meet up once more this year?

The organisation of this year’s Interzoo was no mean feat. It could all have turned out quite differently, too: at the end of January, when the Interzoo organising body WZF took the bold decision to go ahead with the fair despite a high incidence of coronavirus, it was by no means  unlikely that this decision might have to be reviewed. Although most virologists were already predicting that the pandemic would abate in the spring, no one was certain that this would actually happen. It was impossible to foresee in the winter whether international transport connections would have been restored to some extent by the end of May. But as the saying goes, who dares, wins – and WZF was rewarded for its courage when Interzoo went ahead as planned and was a huge success as well.

The pandemic was far from the only challenge facing the Interzoo organiser this year, however. The war in Ukraine that began on 24 February and has shocked the world is not just a humanitarian catastrophe; it has given rise to wide-ranging economic consequences in recent months that will reverberate in the pet sector also for a long time to come.

Against this difficult background, Interzoo was more important than ever before. Not only could exhibitors and visitors…