MDD Expo Preview
By Lauren Carmier

PLI speaks to Antoine Bonnel, Director of GL Events Foods and Goods umbrella brands about the growth and success of MDD Expo.

Held in Paris every year since 2001, the MDD Private Label Expo is evolving and adapting to market trends in order to better serve the growing sophistication of retailers’ private label programs. The next show will be held at Paris Expo, Porte de Versailles in Paris from March 26– March 27, 2008 and has added 5 reasons for exhibitors and buyers to attend. This year’s show will include an additional 20,000 square meters of floor space dedicated to world foods and non-foods. The world foods segment is a complement to the MDD show and will incorporate 4 existing shows: Ethnic Foods, Halal, Gourmet and Pizza & Pasta. All this is in response to the increased demands of European consumers for “World Food” cuisine and ethnic products. The non-foods segment is HBC and will feature about 100 exhibitors.

PL Takes the Lead in Innovation

How well is PL doing in keeping up with the national brands in terms of innovation? The results may pleasantly surprise you. According to new market research, by XTC, a leader in tracking product innovations worldwide, European PL in the grocery/food category produced 13.6% of total product innovations. This represents a 24% increase from May ’06. The period under study is from May ’06–April ’07. For the study, grocery products were categorized as pleasure foods, health, fitness, convenience or ethnic. The category with the most innovations in PL is the pleasure category, up 6.1% from 43.7% to 49.8 %. There is a trend in this category toward increased sophistication and exoticism. These products are often fresh, high quality refrigerated or canned items like chocolate mousse with loads of eggs and cream or exotic products like hummus or guacamole dip. Another encouraging result for PL manufacturers is found in the health category, where PL is slightly outpacing the big brands in innovation. One of the trends noted in the study is the trend toward medicinal qualities applied to PL food products for adults and children. Whether it be low salt, high calcium, added omega 6 and 3’s, or antioxidants, these health benefits are not left to be claimed only by the national brands. For example, Tesco offers a healthy children’s’ milk based drink with puréed fruit under the Tesco Kids label. The packaging states that the product is limited in sugar and salt and an added source of calcium.

Casino–France has added a juice of apple, cranberry and raspberry under the Ondilège label that claims to be an antioxidant cocktail. These are just 2 examples of the many innovations PL manufacturers are offering to entice consumers over to their labels. These trends and more will be showcased at the MDD Private Label Expo in Paris in March 2008.

Antoine Bonnel Talks MDD Expo

Antoine Bonnel, Director of GL Events Foods and Goods umbrella brands, has set out to make his show, the MDD Private Label Expo, THE Private Label food and goods show of Southern Europe and; why not–all of Europe. And so he and his team have shaped the 2008 MDD Expo into an opportunity for buyers to shop and source private label food, HBC (in French it’s DPH for drug, perfume, hygiene) and World foods all under one roof.

Here’s a brief background on the origins of the MDD Private Label Expo. The show was started by the Jangil company based in SW France. In 2005, the company was purchased by EMAP, a brands led multiplatform media group with a portfolio of over 200 brands. In July 2007, the whole group was bought again by GL Events of Lyon, France. Mr. Bonnel, having worked for EMAP is now in charge of the MDD Expo for DL Events. DL Events is quoted on the French stock exchange and estimates 2007 revenue of 495M euros.

PLI met with Mr. Bonnel on the rooftop terrace of GL Event’s office in the heart of Paris to find out about his plans for the 2008 MDD Expo.

PLI: Antoine Bonnel, you are Director of MDD Expo 2008. You have a reputation as a specialist of the ethnic food market, Halal in particular, and you are often asked to consult for the big European grocery retailers, how will you put your “mark” on MDD expo 2008?

AB: I am very interested in growing emerging markets. I cannot say that PL is an emerging market but it is a fast growing market and it has accelerated now since the French government has allowed TV access to the retailers. This has made them aggressive in communicating to the public about their private label brands. Furthermore, new product segments are getting into private label such as Halal food, ethnic food, world food, and fair trade products.

This year, my ethnic shows (Halal, Gourmet, and Ethnic Food) have been integrated by EMAP AGOR into the PL Expo. Why, because, all the shows are highly niche markets. It is very difficult to source the products. Most of these companies are medium sized companies. The first problem facing the buyer is ‘how can I get a real knowledge of all these companies.’ The MDD Private Label Expo is important as a venue to set up centralized meetings.

Secondly whether it’s private label, ethnic, Halal, gourmet, these markets are strategic markets now, not only in volume but also in differentiation of the range of products.

The function of the PL products is the same as ethnic products. It has to attract new customers to the store and turn them into loyal customers. These customers won’t go to another store because the store offers exclusive products that wouldn’t be found in another store.

And I would add a third reason, I believe in the positioning of specialized shows but there are too many specialized shows now. The buyers are receiving many invitations a week. I think if we add five good reasons to visit one event it makes sense for a buyer.

PLI: How do you plan to develop your show and attract more visitors and exhibitors?

AB: In terms of exhibitors, this year we are trying to select the product offer in order to build a comprehensive and complete picture of what is the latest on the PL Market in France and Europe. Our main target will be to orient the entire PL show toward new market trends appearing in Europe. Through this approach, we will attract a large number of buyers looking for a selective offer of companies, which innovate and are hard to meet because they are small or medium sized companies spread out all over Europe. Our core target this year will be to welcome all the international buyers from Southern Europe.  

PLI: In targeting, are you looking for more exhibitors?

AB: One competitor, which you may know is called PLMA. It is a very strong organization, brilliant American based organization, very clever. The only thing about PLMA is that it’s based in Amsterdam. It is a more northern European show in focus and in terms of visitors. However, you will not find so many French buyers going to this show, especially now that we have the PL show in Paris.

So, our analysis is to say that there is a place for a leader and a challenger. We are very proud to be the challenger of PLMA. We are very proud to be based in Paris. Our target positioning is clearly the very French, international retail network and in Europe, the France retail chains are the most international based companies: Carrefour, Auchan, Le Clerc. French buyers will definitely be connected to the French show. All our promotional activity is geared toward visitors from southern Europe with a focus on Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece. In fact, we will reach 700 exhibitors and 5,000 visitors in 2008.

PLI: That’s up from last year by quite a bit.

AB: It represents a 35% increase in visitors and an increase of 300 exhibitors. This is in part due to all the new segments we’ve added to the show: pizza, Halal, gourmet, ethnic, health and beauty. PLMA has 1000 maybe 1100 exhibitors so we are already becoming the challenger.

PLI: Would you say that the MDD PL expo attracts a southern tier of manufacturers?

AB: Yes, this has been our weakness up until now. And that’s another reason why I was recruited to this company. We had a very French team selling to very French companies. This is how come I went after international buyers. People had wished that the show would become more international in terms of exhibitors and buyers. I am a very international minded man. I travel all the time, all over the world and I’m bringing this culture to this company. We will get southern European buyers but also we will attract international exhibitors, much more than last year.

There’s another strategic difference between us and PLMA in our southern European positioning. It is that we are also integrating an exciting and emerging new market, which is North Africa. There has never been such an economic boom as there is now in Morocco and Algeria and to some extent Tunisia. Paris, through its history is connected to these countries.

PLI: Is there something that the buyers will find at your show that they may not find at the PLMA?
AB: The diversification of offer through all the 5 shows. We are also developing some added value areas, innovations, and a new product area of MDD. But the overall differentiation will be in the treatment of the new trends of private label during the show.

For more information on the upcoming show, contact Jangil- Emap-Agor at 33 (0) 553 367878 or www.foods-goods.com.