GERMANY | Koelnmesse and the German Agricultural Society (DLG) want to work together even more closely in the future to connect the food and agriculture economy across the entire value creation chain through joint trade fairs.
In a strategic alliance, they want to expand existing events and develop new trade fair formats in international growth markets. Both partners sealed the cooperation and its goals on 10 September 2026 in Cologne in a joint Memorandum of Understanding.
"With the DLG, we want to work together to further develop the cooperation with a strong partner in order to further advance our respective trade fair portfolios for the agricultural and food industries internationally and offer our customers worldwide even more,” said Bastian Mingers, Vice President Trade Fair Management of Koelnmesse GmbH.
“As a builder of bridges in growth markets throughout the entire world, we open even more doors for our customers by completely covering the value creation chain in the food sector together.”
Shared formats open up new international market chances
The alliance focuses on new and existing trade fairs, congresses, and knowledge formats in food and food technology, new foods and alternative protein sources, and related segments of modern livestock farming, with a focus on milk production and processing. These should expand internationally, become increasingly interlinked, and be complemented by future themes like digitalisation and artificial intelligence. For companies, this means new access to international markets, target groups, and specialised networks across the entire value creation chain.
Jens Kremer, Managing Director of DLG Markets GmbH, said DLG will contribute its specialised competence and network, especially in the fields of food & food technology and the milk economy, to this alliance. Together with Koelnmesse, DLG wants to network more intensively, develop new formats, and make future themes like sustainable production digitalisation, artificial Intelligence, and resource efficiency more visible internationally.
As an association with more than 30,000 members, the DLG is an innovation platform and a leading network in the agriculture and food industry. With leading global trade fairs like AGRITECHNICA and EuroTier and as specialised partners and industry sponsors of the Koelnmesse events Anuga FoodTec, ISM Ingredients and ISM Manufacturing, as well as many regional events and partnerships, it has a strong international trade fair network at its disposal.
One special competence of the DLG is connecting agriculture, food production, and food technology. It thereby brings together practice, science and economy along the entire value creation chain - from plant cultivation and animal husbandry through processing and food technology to food quality, sustainable production and new agricultural and food systems.
Many years of cooperation are being expanded upon
The alliance between Koelnmesse and DLG builds on many years of cooperation at Anuga FoodTec and the previous ProSweets Cologne, today ISM Manufacturing & ISM Ingredients. Anuga FoodTec, which takes place every three years, is the world's leading supplier trade fair for food and beverage production and reflects the entire process chain in Cologne - from processing and packaging to automation, food safety, digitalisation and sustainability. It is supplemented by a growing international network of food tech events, including in India, Italy, Brazil and Colombia.
The established Anuga FoodTec promotes trust, increases international visibility and provides regional formats with access to a worldwide industry network. Anuga FoodTec India's success is evident in its 20th edition this year in Mumbai.
Global Dairy Alliance connects the entire milk value creation chain
As its first joint project, Koelnmesse and DLG wish to expand their cooperation in the milk economy. Under the title "Global Dairy Alliance", milk production, processing, packaging, and quality assurance should be more closely linked. The goal is to merge existing events and networks and develop new, international formats from these.
The first point of contact is Anuga FoodTec India Dairy in New Delhi. The trade fair, first organised in 2026, brings together participants from dairy production, processing, packaging, and technology and is part of the worldwide Anuga FoodTec network.
Koelnmesse and DLG want to develop the format in a targeted way further and link it more closely with primary agricultural production. The country is the world's largest milk producer and accounts for around one quarter of global milk production.
Anuga FoodTec and Inhouse Farming are cooperating more closely with New Food
Another result of the strategic alliance is the closer cooperation between Anuga FoodTec and the Inhouse Farming Convention of the DLG.
In the New Food segment, both formats combine complementary competences along the value creation chain: the Inhouse Farming Convention shifts the focus to innovative production systems, new raw material sources, indoor and vertical farming solutions, alternative proteins as well as cellular agriculture; Anuga FoodTec supplements this perspective with technologies for industrial processing, packaging, automation, food safety and resource efficiency.
Customers of both events thus receive additional access to specialised knowledge, target groups and business contacts - from the development of new production systems to scalable processing of marketable food.
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