BioFach & Vivaness 2016: continually developing in dialogue with the industry

Since July 2015, Danila Brunner has been in charge of the trade fairs BioFach and Vivaness at NürnbergMesse. The 10th anniversary of Vivaness is a good reason to set new emphases. BioFach remains the proven organic market place and knowledge platform for the professionals. 

Mrs Brunner, what is the attraction of the themes organic food and natural cosmetics for you?

I’m interested in the organic theme and I approach what is for me new material in an open and inquisitive way. But, above all, I am really thrilled to be getting into an industry where my customers have, you might say, made their convictions their job. The organic and natural cosmetics sector is characterised by entrepreneurs who are passionate about their values. Today it’s really important that it’s about more than selling and that ecological and social issues play a role. I admire that. Organic gives me the feeling I’m making an active contribution to a positive development.

What experience do you bring to your new job?

I’ve been in the exhibition business for 25 years and I’ve got a lot of experience in a variety of areas of activity and themes. Up to now, organic products have been more of a fringe theme in what I have been doing. In Nuremberg I feel I’m in good hands when I think of the expertise of the committed BioFach and Vivaness team. Their wealth of experience and abilities will be a great help to me. The team and the sector have given me a warm welcome and my already many open and inspiring encounters with actors in the market in a spirit of partnership are making it easy for me to rapidly engage with the theme at a deep level. As a private individual, I’m still a typical average consumer who already appreciates organic food and natural and organic cosmetics, but I’ve still got a lot to discover about them.

BioFach is without doubt the leading international organic trade fair. The four organic fairs have also become established on the domestic market. Where do you see the role of BioFach in the future and how would you like to develop the concept?

In its role as the world’s leading trade fair for organic food, BioFach is an overarching show for international organic diversity, fulfils its function as a platform for business and trade and it plays a political role. Every year, it presents organic across all manner of product assortments, pioneers and inspiring newcomers in equal measure. Important topics like regionality and fair trade are involved here just like questions of ensuring global procurement of raw materials and also matching supply and demand all over the world. It’s precisely in this wide spectrum that BioFach has positioned itself with great success for more than a quarter of a century. What I regard as one of our major tasks is to keep on developing BioFach and Vivaness in dialogue with the industry.

Vivaness is celebrating its 10th birthday. Working together with the team, you’ve had some good ideas, optimized the concept and set new emphases…

Of course, we’ve taken ten years of Vivaness as an opportunity to introduce a number of high profile innovations. One of them is Vivaness on Stage. The stage programme, with workshops, make-up presentations and presentations by exhibitors, is for sure among the highlights. We want to enable visitors to experience at first hand the incredibly varied offer of natural cosmetics firms and the highlights of Vivaness – entertainment but with plenty of content, every quarter of an hour, to supplement discussions on the stands and as an aid to acquiring new customers.

What will be new?

We’re locating the Vivaness Congress in Hall 7A. This means we’re making the distance to get to the proven support programme much shorter and this means visitors and manufacturers can easily combine seeking information and visiting exhibitors. These ideas are the outcome of our discussions with representatives of the industry. The current registration figures confirm that we’ve set the right direction for successfully taking this trade fair forward as the major platform for the international natural and organic cosmetics industry.

We’re especially pleased that industry pioneers like Wala Heilmittel are again all represented in 2016 at Vivaness. For the first time Natrue will present itself with a joint stand, sharing with among others the pioneers Laverana, Primavera Life and Weleda. Just as pleasing is how the attendance of so-called newcomers and niche brands is developing. They are presenting their companies in 2016 at the tried and tested special show Breeze and – in the case of the German exhibitors – for the first time on a joint stand for young innovative companies that is supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs.

At Vivaness 2015, plans to schedule the two trade fairs as separate events and to open them to more target groups caused a good deal of concern. Are these plans still on the agenda?

Our job to keep our ear to the market so that we can constantly check whether we’re meeting everybody’s needs with our concepts. We’ve decided to keep to the proven double trade fair BioFach – Vivaness, with the same hall constellation as in the past. There are simply very big overlaps in the distribution channels. However, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t attract customers to BioFach and Vivaness by differentiating them and aiming as far as possible at specific target groups. The jointly devised Vivaness criteria for exhibitors remain the USP of the international Natural Cosmetics Trade Fair.  If in five, ten or more years the market makes different demands, we’ll have to think with an open mind about changing the concepts and react flexibly – that’s our job. But for now, I’m pleased to be getting to know as many industry players as possible and talking and exchanging ideas with them.

Thank You for this interview!