Potato Council at Potato Europe
Meeting nearly 50 countries in two days
With the GB stand constantly busy, at times it felt as though most of the 15,000 visitors stopped by at some point over the two-day event. “The Potato Council stand at Potato Europe provides a highly visible platform for our seed industry and this year’s event has provided an exceptionally high level of international meetings and networking on the stand” says Robert Burns, Potato Council’s head of seed and export. “Our exporters and related seed science community have all reported a good show this year and we know that the networking from the event will keep them busy for the coming export season and beyond”.
James Thorburn, Variety Development Manager at Greenvale AP Ltd, which exports over 10,000 tonnes of Scottish-grown seed around the world each year, commented on this year’s event saying, “The timing of the event is ideal for us. Having our export team on Potato Council’s GB stand enables us to hold multiple meetings over a fast-moving two days and to communicate our understanding of the quality and quantity of our Scottish seed crops to our customers. This export season is expected to be strong for GB, with seed tuber quality looking good.”
With plenty of GB industry visiting the event too, the first-time UKTI-supported Industry Reception hosted by Potato Council was a hit, with excellent British produce and hospitality on offer, and attendees reporting increased networking opportunities.
Potato Council’s seed and export promotional campaign will continue, first with the new Seed Expo, part of the forthcoming ‘potato pilgrimage’ to BP 2013 event in Harrogate (27-28 November) and continues early in 2014 at Fruit Logistica, when Potato Council will be joined by their AHDB horticultural colleagues, Horticultural Development Company (HDC), in Berlin (5-7 February).
For more details on these and other industry events, visit our updated events calendar: www.potato.org.uk/events