Natexpo: More professional, new activity areas and product innovations

As you enter the hall you see a a large, impressive area specifically for special exhibitions. The latest theme is dyeing textiles with red, yellow and blue dyes made from plants grown in France. The fashion specialist Anne Dupuy undertook the preparation of this theme for the trade fair company Natexpo, and she presented three projects that cultivate dye plants in France. She also mounted an eco-fashion competition for trainees at fashion colleges in Paris. “They showed great creativity and really enjoyed designing lots of clothes,” said Anne Dupuy. To present them to the professional attendees, display mannequins were dressed in these clothes and placed in the area in front of the big info-board. (Picture: Clothes show in front of a big info-board)
 
The retail wholefood trade presented itself at Natexpo on stands like those of the chain La Vie Claire, the wholefood network Biocoop and the franchise concept Le Grand Panier bio. While some of the chains like Naturalia and Satoriz already have dozens of organic supermarkets, others are still building up their numbers. Le Grand Panier Bio operates three organic supermarkets, each with 300 m² to 700 m², in Clermont-Ferrand in the Massif Central and Limoges. Since 2010, Bertrand Perot and his father have been setting up a franchise system that three more stores have now joined, and scheduled to follow in March 2014 are two further stores measuring 350 m² and 600 m² of retail space. “I see my main job as advising and assisting the stores and negotiating good conditions with suppliers,” said Perot. The stores then get their goods direct from these suppliers and from wholefood wholesalers. (Picture: Bertrand Perot on a stand presenting his concept)
 
Naturally, a trade fair is always an ideal place to introduce innovations and new products to the public. Bearing this in mind, the trade fair company gets its Natexpo Trophies ready well in advance. Prizes are given for special product innovations, that can then be seen on special display at the entrance. While the first visitors were waiting on Sunday morning to be let in at 9.30, the last few letters of La Galerie Des Nouveautés were being stuck on the orange background. (Picture: Innovations on display). Outside it was pouring with rain. A crowd of about 100 people were waiting impatiently until finally the glass doors of the exhibition hall were opened about five minutes after the official opening time.
 

There were a good dozen awards for innovations in the categories food, cosmetics and household goods. The innovative products included a shampoo with plant-based keratin, baby food with an almond powder base, omega 3,6,9 oil and special herbal teas to encourage the production of breast milk.

The development of a new cola syrup by the manufacturer Maison Meneau (picture) was particularly interesting. This company already has a wide selection of fruit syrup concentrates in its product range, and now a new organic variant with fair trade ingredients is being added for the Coca-Cola generation. Diluted 1:6 with sparkling water, it produces a rounded, stimulating drink. It was developed by the managing director of the company Philippe Lassalle Saint-Jean (picture on right) and is the first syrup product of this kind, without additives and in organic quality. It certainly deserved the first prize, the Trophée d'Or Natexpo. €5.90 is a good price too for a 0.5 litre bottle with which you can make 3 litres of “fresh” Bio-Cola. 
 
In the category eco-household products a home composter is worthy of special attention, and it did in fact receive a trophy award. Consumers not only want to buy organic food in the specialist shop of their choice – they also want to buy the things that help them in their daily lives to reduce the amount of waste. Awards were presented for the Ecovi-Composteur by Idriss Aouriri. The patented 20 litre container has a close-fitting lid. You cut up the kitchen waste, compress it with a masher and then add a spoonful of micro-organisms. After as little as 2 weeks, fluid can be drained off through a little tap, diluted with water and used to feed flowers. The composter has been tested over three years, and for the last year it has been available to the specialist trade for €59.     

(Pictures on left: Lovechock and Natracare)






(Picture on right: New products from Naturgie: tasty, chocolate-covered fruit sticks with orange, lemon, ginger and plum)

 
Over 40 lectures were on the programme of the three-day trade fair. A good 80 % were lectures given by firms and covering a wide range of topics. One of the first to address specific policies was by Laura Ullmann from the IFOAM-EU-Group in Brussels. She spoke about the importance of the work carried out in Brussels to ensure that parliamentarians, the EU institutions, politicians and the public are kept up-to-date with information. The Directorate General of the  EU Commission is currently working on a new version of the EU Organic Directive, parts of which could have far-reaching consequences for the organic industry. Ullmann said that three options are under discussion. For example, because of recent cases of fraud, they are considering abolishing combined conventional/organic farms.
(Picture: Laura Ullmann, on left, on the IFOAM-EU stand at Natexpo) 
 
Other lectures addressed, for example, the use of organic food in catering and the marketing of food and cosmetics in diverse countries like Belgium, the Czech Republic and Poland. (Picture: Agence Bio reporting on publicity campaigns to promote the organic industry and the use of organics in restaurants)

No-cost services for wholefood shops are always a favourite topic, and the small coffee roaster Torréfaction Dagobert, that has its headquarters 30 km from Lyons, has used this to its advantage.

They not only sell their organic coffee, that is 60 % fair trade, to 250 wholefood shops in the region Rhône-Alpes but also supply an electric coffee grinder. So their roasted coffee beans can be freshly ground, if that’s what the customer wants. The initiators of this attractive offer are Adeline and David Gobert (abbreviated to Dagobert). The little company was founded in 2001 and, after a change of premises, is now housed in a building with 280 m² of working space. They have installed 100 m² of photovoltaic panels on the roof. As the orders come in, on average they roast 555 kg of organic coffee per day for Biocoop shops, the chains L'Eau Vive, Satoriz and La Vie Saine, the network of Bio-Monde shops and about 100 other shops. The packaging can be 100 % composted by the consumer. (Picture: David and Adeline Gobert from the coffee roaster Dagobert)
 
“We’re very happy with the response on our stand and the make-up campaign for which we hired a cosmetician,” Betty Santonat, spokesperson for the Cosmébio group, is pleased to report. This is the first time that the association, that has created two standards for natural cosmetics labels in France, has offered the public a free make-up trial. “We had plenty of visitors to our stand, and we’ll think about how we can do this again in the future. Users of cosmetics often have one or two organic products, but we show them the whole range of possibilities, and that’s something quite different.”  She said the cooperation with the cosmetics firms that supplied the products has been very good. (Picture: Stand of Cosmébio with make-up campaign)
 
Lots of people visited the show cooking that took place in the rear section of the hall as well. In this form, this was also a first. Kitchens, with large mirrors, had been set up in a line so that people watching could see exactly what the chefs were doing and follow all the action live. Many of the visitors were interested in the demonstrations, got into conversation with the chefs, asked questions, and the chefs provided useful information. So, far more activity areas than at Natexpo two years ago made for a much more vibrant exhibition this year, and for visitors it was a more lively and varied experience. (Picture: View of the well equipped show kitchen)
 
As was the case at Natexpo in recent years, numerous German firms attended this year’s fair. About a dozen well known manufacturers were grouped under the roof of Pural, examples being Soto, Andechser, Heirler and Donath. “Particularly important for us at the moment are the vegan manufacturers with Taifun, Soto, Viana, Soyananda and Wheaty,” explained Heinz Claus, the head of the wholesaler Claus-Pural, who travelled from Baden-Baden with his wife Sonia specifically to support Pural’s 40-strong exhibition team and the sub-exhibitors. And his daughter Ulrike added: “We’re especially pleased that 20 years ago we were present for the first time at Dietexpo, the predecessor of NatExpto.” (Picture: The Claus-Pural team in Paris: Herr Charaoui, Fritz Großholz, Ulrike Claus, Sonia Claus, Heinz Claus and Berard Cron)